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PREMILLENKIALISM A DELUSION. 



MEMBER or THE PEESBTTEEI OE XORIHr:\IBERLAXD. 



M 



i 



— Matt. xxiv. 23. 

Tovro yi^wrKovTig^ on ttocco. 'prpoiX^'/tntix 'ypa(prii^ loiocg I'ttiai/uIms oh y'lvircti. 

—2 Pet. i. 20. 



JOHXSTOXE AXD HUXTER, 
EDINBURGH AXD LONDON. 






kdia'bukgh: 

printed by johnstone am) huxtek, 

104 high strest. 

P [ 



CO 



PRESBYTERY OP XORIHUMBE RL A x\D, 

WHICH WAS PRESCRIBED AS A PRESBYTERIAL EXERCISE 

TO ONE OF THEIR YOUNGER MEMBERS. 

IS DEDICATED, 

WITH 

AFPECTION AND RESPECT. 



CONTEXTS. 



Pajre 

PART I. — The Philosophical ARorMEXT. ... 7 

,, II. — The Theologicab axd Biblical Argument, , 35 

„ III. — The First Resurrectiox, .. . , . 85 

„ lY. — Dieficulties ExA^nxED, .... 104 

V. — " Glorious things spoken or Zion," . , 153 



ESSAY ON THE PEEMILLENNIAL ADVENT. 



PAET I. 

THE PHILOSOPHICAL AKGUMEXT. 

It can be made very clear, from tlie Word of God, that 
the Aiitichristian system at present in the Tvorld is 
Popery, and that it is to be destroyed. Does that Word 
contain hints that a further development of error shall 
take place after the Papacy has been cast down, sug- 
gesting at the same time what its nature shall be ? If 
so, can we form any proper notion of the system, so as 
to reason from its nature to the mode of its destruction, 
and by a comparison of it with Popery, see cause to 
conclude that its do\^Tifal shall be accomplished in an 
entnely different way ? And, in connection with the 
Word, are there any facts or principles upon which a 
generalization may be formed to arrive at the same 
result, or at least to throw light and explanation upon 
the statements which are to be found in that Book of 
Grod ? And, in pursuing such an investigation, if it be 
found that a sound generalization of many facts and 
principles lead to the opinion that there shall be such a 
system, and if it be found that its nature is such as that 
its annihilation can only be accomplished by the Second 
Advent — according to the constant method of the diA^ne 



8 PREMILLENNIALISM A DELUSION. 

government — shall we not have the aid of philosophy, 
so far as it goes, to counteract (1.) the theory of the 
Premillemiial Advent; and (2.) the idea that a " Ceesar- 
ianism," or concentrated civil Papacy, shall arise while 
Eomanism is still in existence? We propose to pursue 
this investigation for a little, specially to catch the light 
it may shed on the subject of this essay. 

'' He that is joined to the Lord is one spirit,'' is a 
formula that more than aught else declares the nature 
of the Christian life and the beauty of the Christian 
religion. The result of it is a oneness of mil, and 
entire self-dedication to the Lord, which appear in all 
relations, places, and circumstances. This is the ideal 
of the Christian life ; so much so, as that he is no true 
Christian who does not desire it, and aim after it as the 
great business of his life. 

To produce similar phenomena, with the Lord Jesus 
Christ excluded and superseded, is the masterpiece of 
Satanic ingenuity and crime. The wicked one has been 
labouring for the last eighteen centuries to bring the 
Christian world into this entire subjection of mind, 
will, and conduct to a creature of his own. He has 
attempted, and that not ill, to counterpart the mechan- 
ism of God's highest scheme of love to man, and to 
produce thereby vice, and misery, and wo, — a misery 
which does not cease with an abode in this worlds 

There are two ways in which this great work of 
Satan might be elaborated. We could suppose hiui 
contri^dng that a visible spiritual head shall obtain such 
mastery over the Christian world, as to bend every man, 
in will and action, into a conformity with an arbitrary 
dictation ; and this under a system which shall be en- 
forced by spiritual and temporal penalties. Or, we 



THE PHILOSOPHiaiL ARGmiENT. 9 

might suppose a ^dsible political head raised up to do 
precisely the same thing in all civil matters, and by a 
terrible Erastianism to compel the same in that which is 
spiritual. There might be either a Papacy concentrated 
into universal Jesuitism, or a despotism concentrated 
into a universal " Ceesarianism/" And, suppose the 
wicked one knew the end from the beginning, there is 
no reason to suppose but the two might have been em- 
bodied in one individual head. From the known prin- 
ciples of the Papacy, and from the hypothetical princi- 
ples of the C^sarianism, there is nothing abstractly to 
prevent the coalition of the two, and their unity in one 
head, who might be called " the vicar of Christ,'' or 
the " vicegerent of Christ,'' or the opponent of Christ, 
according to circumstances. 

We know that the devil will counterfeit every part 
of the ideal of the Christian religion. Now, this reli- 
gion means no less than what has already been stated. 
Surely it means that the one will of Christ ought to 
actuate every man baptized into his name, and will do 
so in every one baptized into him in a spiritual manner. 
If we view him as the Bishoj) of souls and the Head of 
the Christian church, this will be the case in all things 
spiritual ; and if we regard him as the Mediatorial King 
— as the actual head of a Christian polity, — that is, if 
we view the Christian world as a theocracy, with the 
Lord, either visibly or " by name," at the head of it, 
this will be the case in all matters temporal likewise. 
So that, to use the language of Jesuitical and of Cae- 
sarian writers, '' Men being unable to use their own 
liberty aright, or to have a will of their own, must sub- 
mit reason, will, and conscience to the supremacy and 
dictation of another ; " that other, in this case, beino^ 



10 PEEillLLEyyiALI^M a DELrSIOX. 

neirher the P-pe :::r C-^:.:\ h- the Lord Je.ii< CLti.t. 
TTben i"oe:: ere :?/e_r.: re' ^.j-::. :: h:::^ ::.;.: :hev eamiol 



ea,se. Men shall v^: v:-h e v he. -eh ; ;: e ; : :. - 

the Lerh, Thev h::h v,- hlr^- h;- ::^:-- - 

iher hath <:hr:r"_e:ee_e:l :he: :h~ -xe-rinient of the Medi- 
atorial Hea^l-hhe ::: h:_- iii'iividual instance, shell he an 

may be the pereerhrer e: :h- '/-/::: :e:":e ;_::: , e:::l. 



and Irv :.h 'e::ihs of ^vriters. — - 



— that ^ee:e^ ."";e-x- :e C'e'rii-e:..:: /■- '. ■>v '.:. ^yj'i. 

and the h.'>::ee.:e: -e -r'__[r':_ _yj _ :;:.. AIo^: 
Hi,h h;. irei.h^rh, H^. ..>h-, " '- 

unsettl 1 le^h _ . h : ants, in such a 

wav ae horh -hh h-:--;"' iiit-iii una^e i.i- uwn power, and 
ruin th-e.. e.: y :e, 

It is evident a univMi-.^-d Pap: •'" ■-' ;;ld senre his pur- 



THE PHILOSOPHIC.il AEC-rU^yrEXT. 11 

pose, were that merely to make men miserable in the 
life to come, leaving them with a modicum (not very 
great sometimes) of worlrljy pleasure, while they have 
existence here. And a universal de-potism. without 
the spiritual element, would do equally well if he de- 
sired to make them miserable for the present life Tsuch 
an one as Exod. ^d. 9 '. and probably in that to come. 
But suppose he could get them both embodied in one. 
that he could get a •'• C^sarianisui " set up, then the 
pui'cst misery would obtain, without intermission; both 
in this world and the next. In proportion to the ex- 
tent to which they have at any time been combined, has 
been the misery of those who were exposed to its tyranny. 
And of course the desire which animates the wicked 
one's mind to accomplish the ruin and wretchedness of 
humanity, will direct all his energies to the elaboration 
of a system in which the two shall be incorporated into 
one. He aims at the setting up of a *• Cfesarianism." 

There are many principles, blessed be G-od. with 
which he has to contend. TThen luidertaking from the 
beginning to counterfeit the supremacy of the Mediator, 
he did not understand the obstacles which stood in the 
way. Unable to comprehend the conflicting sentiments 
which are found in the human breast, unable precisely 
to see the proper effect of G-od's religion in moulding 
the characters of men. and unable to perceive how civil 
and religious interests and their principles would act 
together, — ^he constructed a system which will defeat 
his own ends so long as its principles are in operation. 
For rushing headlong, and yet with singular sagacity, 
he seized what was evidently the strongest forces actinof 
in and upon men, and moulded them into the system of 
the Papacy. He marked with much precision, at the 



12 PREMILLENNIALISM A DELUSION. 

time he tried to overturn the Christian faith by bonds, 
and imprisonments, and burnings, and death, that the 
principles of civil liberty and political prosperity are 
feeble when called to contend with real faith and genu- 
ine Christian life. Previous to Constantino, when the 
civil and religious elements were in opposition, and 
when good men clung to the spiritual and let the tem- 
poral go, he devised his tactics and sketched his system. 
These he steadily pursued with some modification — a 
modification from the purely spiritual, so as to take some 
account of the civil element when the empire became 
professedly a Christian one, — until, in the gigantic 
Papacy, he had formed an Antichrist which, from its 
principles of infallibility and universality, can admit of 
no equal, religious or civil. We believe he cannot him- 
self wield the system he has contrived, so as to accom- 
plish the design his heart is set upon. JS'ot but that it 
will serve his purpose well enough for ruining the souls 
of men. But he has more than that at heart. His 
desire is to counterfeit the theocracy, and set up a 
universal despotism over mind, and body, and con- 
science. He longs for a civil and spiritual Jesuitism in 
one head — even a Csesarianism. 

A person with a mind powerful enough to compre- 
hend the force of principles of every kind, and to know 
the characteristics of nations and the idiosyncrasies of 
men, could tell how given principles, at a given time, in 
given circumstances, would operate on a given nation 
or individual, so as to predict, with tolerable accuracy, 
the time when, and manner how, certain results would 
arise. And if he had access to the springs of action, he 
could fix his mind on a specific result and obtain it. 
But to do so, he must be ready to meet accidental 



THE PHILOSOPHICAL ARGUMENT. 13 

powers which may arise, — yea, at the outset, he should 
know that these Avill appear, and the time and way in 
which they shall present themselves. To an extent 
greater than most men think of, the prince of darkness 
has such a mind as the first part of this proposition 
implies. But he is wholly ignorant of the nature and 
power of the many forces God can present to thwart 
his designs^ Without our referring at all to those which 
flow from " the new covenant," and its introduction into 
the world in the Spirit of all grace, and attending only 
to those which naturalli/ present themselves, we are at 
liberty to say, that, in elaborating the Papacy, he took 
not such account as was necessary to his design of 
those principles of civil liberty in men who, though 
Christian in name, are not like the Christians of the 
times of Nero or of Mark Antony. Hence his grand 
scheme has been thwarted even in Popish countries. 
The " Galilean liberties,'"' and the " concordats " of con- 
tinental law, show the impossibility of a Popish Csesar- 
ianism. We take very much for granted, — indeed, with 
those whom we specially address, it will not be contro- 
verted, — ^tbat the prince of this world can be satisfied 
with no less than the union of Popery and of despotism 
in that concentrated system of wickedness we have 
referred to, under the name '' C^sarianism ; '^ and the 
inquiry turns to this, whether it be possible to obtain 
such unity, beginning, as he has done, by constructing 
the Papacy. We believe not. Leaving out universality 
in its proper sense, and viewing only Christendom, it 
can only be done by the Papacy gi\dng up its distinc- 
tive claims, or the civil powers all at once casting away 
their authority and merging themselves into the Pope 
of Rome. The former of these cannot take place. The 



14 PREMILLENNIALISM A DELUSION. 

principles held by most Roman casuists, and promul- 
gated by the Council of Trent, are of such a kind as 
for ever to prevent it. Nothing but annihilation can 
sweep away the embodiment of such principles. It is 
a system which claims to be all that the ideal of Satan 
demands; and it will go down with the claim on its 
lips. It ceases to be by a self-destruction, when it lays 
aside this claim. It must nail it to the mast. It shall 
sink into the abyss with it. 

There is nothing to prevent the civil powers from 
merging into, or rather being absorbed in, the papal, 
save the superior power of infidelity over conscience, and 
the tenacity with which all men cling to power. (We 
have already said that the element of true religion is 
at present left out of view.) And to accomplish this 
absorption is now the aim of the wicked one, and of his 
myrmidons the Jesuits, who, indeed, make it their sole 
pursuit, their very order being called into existence for 
this purpose. But it cannot be. To obtain this result, 
there would require to be but one universal emperor, 
who himself should be elected Pope, or at least would 
hand over his power and dominion, by bequest or de- 
mission, to the supreme pontiff. And the power of con- 
science would require to be greatly stronger than it is, 
ere it could coj^e with infidelity ; the latter being a 
much more powerful mechanical agent than the former. 
There cannot be a pure C^sarianism save as it springs 
out of the ashes of Popery. There is nothing, indeed, 
in the principles of infidelity, nor in the national ]^evceip- 
tion of civil liberty, to prevent the temporal authority 
from being subservient to the Roman pontiff. And we 
have the intimation in God's Word (Rev. xvii. 12-14), 
that this shall be the case for a little time, but in such 



THE PHILOSOPHICAL ARGOIEXT. 15 

a way as admits not of a previous universal empire. 
The ten kings are to give their power and strength to 
the beast, and soon after are to hate her who sitteth on 
the beast and make her desolate. 

So long as there are ten kings, there cannot be a 
Csesarianism. There may be the manifestation of it on 
a small scale, as is so lamentably the case in Eomagna. 
The ci\al and the spiritual may be united in a crushing 
tyranny in one or more parts of the world, or for a short 
period more extensively ; but this is not the system re- 
ferred to. Even though this were the case in most of 
the world's kingdoms, it would not be the system we 
speak of : for, like the Papacy itself, its claim is to uni- 
versality. And according to the march or cycle of 
error,* it Tvdll be universal. AMiile there is the divisi- 
ble in earthly monarchies, it cannot be set up ; but the 
Papacy shall be destroyed by " the ten kings :'' where- 
fore it will be so before the Caesarianism is set up, 
but not before it is thought of, and the theory mooted. 
For we see not any reason which will lead those who 
have given their power and strength to the beast, to 
hate and make desolate the Papacy, save this — that a 
mighty effort shall be made in the interval to set up this 
"the Antichrist'' at Rome ; even that Antichrist spoken of 
in Scripture, which, rolling into being down through the 
Papacy, will be the diaboKc counterpart of the theocracy. 

In the present order of things, the Papacy and the 
Caesarianism are, as systems, antagonist. They are 
not necessarily so, but incidentally, from the peculiar 
tactics the wicked one has pursued. That they are 
not necessarily in a state of antagonism is clear from the 
coincidence of their proper principles, and theii- unity if 
* See the last part of this essay. 



16 PEEMILLEXXLiLISM A DELrSIOX. 

tliey had only been constructed together ; and also from 
the fact that notiimg else than the combmation of the 
tvro can be the counterpart of the Eedeemer's position 
in the holy catholic church. Satan will ultimately 
attain it, for the ultimate phase of error can only be 
developed when this gigantic masterpiece of ^illany is 
perfected. And, therefore, taking matters as we find 
them, we Ijelieve the conclusion is plain, that the one 
system must be destroyed ere the other have existence. 
That it will come into being — that the terrible system 
to wliieh we have referred shall yet be perfected in the 
earth, we need not stop to prove. The fact that God 
allows Satan to do his utmost, and then sweeps his 
work away, to glorify his own gracious name ; the fact 
that heathenism has often presented, to some extent, 
Satan's ideal, only wanting the peculiar elements which 
an apostasy from Christianity shall present ; the fact 
that sin shall be better known by unbelief than by na- 
tui'e^ — by the rejection of revelation, than of the light 
of nature ; the fact that the Christian world has rushed 
as eagerly and determinedly fi^om G-od as the heathen ; 
the fact that men seek natm-ally to rest in such a state of 
things ; the fact that the divine and glorious embodi- 
ment of it, as a satisf^Tug of these instinctive cravings of 
the spii'its of men, men/ have a counterfeit : — these, and 
many more facts wliich might be named, are sufficient 
to prove it, especially when we analyze the nature of 
that defection of the world from Christ, and the con- 
federacy of Gog and Magog against the Lord God of 
Hosts and his Christ, of which the Bible speaks, the ele- 
ments of which seem to agree with what we speak of. 

Here then are two great systems. Both are wonder- 
ful exhibitions of satanic intellect and enera-v. Both 



THE PHILOSOPHICAL ARGUMENT. 17 

arise from the proneness of men to seek rest in the ex- 
ternal and the material. Both shall be destroyed by 
the Lord ; that destruction resulting in the calling back 
of men to the spiritual and the eternal. We think it 
could be demonstrated that both cannot exist together, 
as matters now are ; we would not have much difficulty 
in pro\ing this. And we find the Papacy now existing. 
The other must then be still futine — a future which 
does not become present till the Romish Anticlnist is 
swept away. 

Again, that which holy Scripture holds out to the church 
of Christ as its millennium is something distinct from 
its eternal glory. And nothing can be more plain fi*om 
the TTord. than that this millennium shall commence when 
the Papacy is '' made desolate and burnt with fire ;'' and 
the eternal glory, when " fire comes doT\Ti from God out 
of heaven to consume* the impious Csesarianism. Where- 
fore, the question of the time of the second advent of the 
Lord can be answered by discovering how these two 
great systems of delusion and guilt shall be destroyed ; 
and the natm-e of that state of things which shall obtain 
when either is swept away, may be determined by re- 
membering that it shall be suited to the system put down, 
and by understanding what the nature of that system 
is. The millennium shall answer to Popery ; the hea- 
venly glory shall be in contrast to the Csesarianism, 

Another principle requires to be stated before we 
can look dii^ectly at these things, and conclude on the 
claims of premillennialism. The religion of Jesus 
Christ progresses to a divine theocracy. In every true 
Christian this theocratic kingdom is set up. And the 
world is yet to be full of true Christians, so as that the 
interrelations of the universal community shall be con- 

B 



18 premillexxl'lLIsm a delusion. 

ducted on theocratic rules. The Christian ideal shall ob- 
tain universally. The world shall be a Christendom, and 
its religion very much a real one. There are two ways in 
which we might imagine its form to be presented, — one, 
byha\dng its King visible in the midst of it ; the other, that 
he being at a distance, or at least * ' not seen,'"' iiis na^^ie 
shall be the object of homage. The Jewish people had 
a theocracy, with many tokens of Jehovah's presence ; 
but he himself was among them by name, — ^he '"put 
his name there f whence the origin of that common 
appellation of the Lord God which that people use, we 
mean ^''^'", *' the name," applied by them to intimate the 
Shem-hamphorash, but also in the Avay we mention. 
Xow, if the world's theocracy have the Lord visibly in 
the earth, which will be discovered by the course of in- 
vestigation we are pursuing, the claims of our premil- 
lennial friends are good ; but if his " name'' be the ob- 
ject visible, then they are unsolid. To have the Lord 
visibly in the midst of the earth, is accomplished of course 
by a visible descent ; so that the quomodo or way in 
which the millennium shall be brought about, would on 
this hypothesis be the Second Advent. To have the 
Lord's name in the midst of the earth, every one sees, 
admits of a quomodo altogether different, even the ex- 
tension of the divine Word in which that name is revealed. 
When the apostle directs attention to the headship of 
Christ Jesus, and its recognition by all men, it is to 
something of this kind he refers in the words, '' Every 
knee shall bow at his name." The world has not yet 
seen such a beauty or authority in the name of Jesus iis 
to bow the knee to it. The only way it could do so is 
by an intelligent acquaintance with that exhibition of it 
which we have in the inspired volume. If the Bible 



THE PHILOSOPHIC.VL ^IRGUMEXT. 19 

were world-wide, and tlie belief and love of it supreme. 
we should soon see ^' every knee bow at the name of 
Jesus/"' and hear '• every tongue confess that he is Lord, 
to the glory of God the Father/'' 

AVe consent to the creed of all true Protestants, that 
the Pope is Antichrist. Yet we do not suppose Popery 
is the summum of apostasy, any more than the mam' 
Antichrists in the days of John the Divine were the 
perfection of that blasphemy, where one *' sits in tiie 
temple of God showing liimself that he is God.''' We 
have already seen, that there is a j^ossibility of a system 
still more diabolic and atrocious than the Papacy itself. 
We have no desire, indeed, to conceal the atrocities of 
Popery ; we will not dispute but that it has at diiierent 
periods well nigh exhausted the cunning of hell and 
reached the satanic ideal. Still there are many reasons 
for believing that the perfected Antichrist — the ulti- 
mate cycle of Antichristian error, delusion, and blas- 
phemy, — will appear in a Csesarianism. It can be all that 
Ultramontanism has ever been, and a good deal more : 
and our stand is taken on the principle of the moral 
government of the redeeming God, that the possible, 
the summum of sin — will be permitted, to evidence the 
true nature of grace and of glory : "^Miere sin abounded, 
grace did much more abound." 

Xow, the precise meaning and aim of the system of 
Popery is not discovered in a professed war against the 
Lord Jesus Christ and his saints. Of course, we can 
show that practically it is so. But what is its professed, 
and actual, and acknowledged design ? A war against 
the Bible and the spiritual life and privileges of men. 
We cannot be contradicted in saying that this apostate 
system openly declares it will not tolerate the Bible. 



20 PKEMILLENNIALISM A DELUSIOX. 

but will destroy it wherever it can. We cannot bo 
contradicted in saying that Popery is a renouncing of 
God's grace, and a systematized sanctifying of all that 
is vile and unspiritual in fallen, corrupt human nature. 
This is Popery. 

On the other hand, if we understand that extraor- 
dinary system which is already becoming a theory by 
some writers m Prance, and which they have called 
Csesarianism, its very nature is such as to lead to a pro- 
fessed war with the Lord and his saints, in addition to 
all the essential elements of the Papacy. It is an exter- 
minating w^arfare, which no system save a mighty Eras- 
tianism can wage, and which can arise at no time save 
as the reaction of a universal spiritualism — a spiritualism, 
we mean, in the Bible sense. When the Roman Anti- 
christ fights against the saints of the Most High, it first 
denounces them as not being saints at all, and then, 
under the standard of the cross, and as the professed 
servants of Christ in the matter, it puts them to death. 
Under the sign of the cross, it makes a crusade against 
the children of God and his Christ, placing them in the 
same category with the children of Mahomet. But 
when the Caesarianism shall tread the same path and 
" go forth to compass the camp of the saints," it will 
first declare them to be the people of Christ, and then, 
in public and declared hatred to him, go forward under 
the banner of hell, to sw^eep away the spiritual out of 
the world. The fire which shall set this world on a 
blaze will come down from God out of heaven, to con- 
sume this army of Gog and Magog, at the time thj dead 
are raised, the living changed, and He descends who 
'' shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing 
and kingdom.'' He knows little of the heart of man, 



THE PHILOSOPHICAL ARGUMENT. 2i 

the nature of sin, the malignity and intellect of the devilj 
and the operation of the terrible principles wliich are on 
the lield of the world in men and things, who will call 
this picture of the apostasy of the end a fancy. And 
he has read history and his Bible with little discrimina- 
tion who does not see that a much higher colourinii' 
could be given to it with the data which a comprehen- 
sive philosophy of humanity, as exhibited under the two 
covenants, supplies. There is a possibility of reasoning 
upon the materials we are in possession of, ahnost as 
aeciu^ately of the future as of the past. 

So far then as we are able to comprehend matters, we 
conceive that the destruction of the Papacy synchronizes 
with the commencement of that blessed epoch vrlien 
•• the stone cut out of the mountain without hands shall fill 
the whole earth ;" and that the state of thmgs conse- 
quent thereon shall be a Millennium — •• the ^lillennium'' 
— the nature of which will correspond with the nature 
of Popish delusion and apostasy, standing out as tlie 
great contrast to it. And we conceive the destruction 
of Ca^sarianism is contemporaneous with the visible 
descent of the Judge of all, the renewal of the earth in 
the baptism of tire, and the everlasting perdition of the 
wicked ; and that the state of things thenceforth, the 
new heavens and the new earth, shall exiiibit God's 
highest work of grace, following the development of 
Satan's masterpiece of ^'illany and guilt in the greatest 
apostasy of deceived and unbelieving men. 

More light shall be cast on these things in the course 
of the essay, but meanwhile we are in a position to in- 
dicate our theory and carry it into the question of the 
Second Advent. If we take every system now in the 
Avorkl, we shall iind that, with the exception of God's 



JJ PREMILLEXXIALISM A DELUSION. 

true eliurch. the essential and vital element of all is en- 
mity to and rejection of the written Word of God, This 
enmity is carrying men onwards to two points — to 
Popery and Pantheism. There is a priestly war against 
the Bible, and there is a rationalistic war against it. 
Xor are these confined to their respectiye camps. One's 
soul almost dies within him when contemplating the 
amount of both in the Protestant churches of more 
countries than continental ones, forming a volcanic 
gathering which shall ere long upheave every denomi- 
nation, and split it into a thousand fragments. — frag- 
ments which shall again arrange themselves into the two 
classes of believing and unbelieving, of those who serve 
God and those who serve him not. In a certain view 
of them, rationalism and priestism are repugnant and 
in a state of antagonism ; but in their vital element they 
are one. In their internal relations to each other, they 
are repellent forces ; but in theii' external energy and 
action appears a thorough unity against the revelation 
of God. And that system which is already Pantheistic 
in its practice and morality — which has already over- 
Liu^ned the foundations of right and wrong, will not be 
slow to accept with open arms the Pantheistic army. 
Ere long we expect to find two armies in possession of 
the field of Christendom, instead of the thousand and 
one sects with which it is inundated. The one army 
shall be God's true church, a small braid, a •• Httle 
fiock," but steadfast, and hopefid. and orderly in its 
phalanxes; the other shall be the Papal Antichrist, mtli 
a Pantheistic creed engrafted on the canons of its Tri- 
dentine Council. A collision of not very long duration, 
and not of doubtful result, will take place. A persecu- 
tion, of probably three years and a half, will aim at 



THE PHILOSOPHICAL AKaUMENT. 23 

crushing the church. And then the Antichristian power 
is broken, in the way described in the Apocalypse, and 
the JVIillennium commences — one which, commencing in 
Christendom (probably in Scotland, Isa. xiv. 13), shall 
spread like a flood of glory over the whole world — the 
flood of light pouring forth from every centre of spiri- 
tuality, in India, in China, in Britain, in the Antipodes. 
And Satan being bound, we shall not then be long in 
subduino' the wide world by the two-edo^ed sword of 
the Spirit. Will the Second Advent take place before 
and in order to this, or not till the time of the end, 
when Satan, having been loosed from his prison, where 
his mind was intent on the elaboration of a method of 
counteracting millennial grace and revenging himself 
upon the church, shall accomplish the universal apostasy 
which at the end is to be for ever swept away ? To 
guide our answer, let it be remembered that the creed 
of the premillennial Antichrist is to a great extent Pan- 
theistic, the proper counteractive of which is the entire 
subjection of man's reason and conscience to the writ- 
ten Word of G-od ; and that the creed of the postmillen- 
nial Antichrist is infidelity, pure and professed (2 Peter 
iii. comp. Matt. xxiv. 37-39), that its aim is the destruc- 
tion of all that is spiritual, either really or in appearance, 
so as that heaven, and Grod, and Christ, and salvation, 
and eternity may no more be named in the earth, and 
that its claim is to be itself recognised as Grod, and Lord, 
a.nd Christ for ever : to which Caesarianism there can be 
no counteractive but the visible descent of the Lord the 
Judge. 

If the characteristics of these two great systems have 
been accurately stated; if error be developed by cycles, 
the second embracing the first, the third the first two, 



24 PREMILLENNIALISM A DELUSION. 

and the last all that go before (as is shown in the last 
part of this essay) ; and if Csesarianism, or whatever else 
it may be called, be a cycle which can embrace that of 
the Papacy and much more, being, so far as we can see, 
the summimi of apostasy, — then must the present system 
disappear from the earth before the other can be estab- 
lished in it. And it is only necessary to investigate 
the method of the divine procedure, in the destruction 
of error and the advancement of his cause and welfare 
of his church, to decide the question, ^Yhether the 
Lord's second coming shall take place at and in order 
to the destruction of Popery — that is, be premillen- 
nial ; or at and in order to the overturning of Caesa- 
rianism — that is, after the world's conversion, and when 
time shall be no more ? And here we must not allow 
our minds to be disturbed by the relative meaning of the 
words first and second in the two advents of Christ the 
Lord. So far as the nature of his first coming and the 
work he fulfilled when on earth is concerned, there is 
nothing in it to fix it down to any particular period of 
the world's history. We know it took place in the 
" fulness of time," at the most suitable period, to suit 
and exhibit God's merciful plans. But the nature of it 
does not abstractly tie it down to any precise time. It 
is different entirely with the Second Advent ; its very 
nature fixes it down to one determined period of the 
world's history. And the only relative meaning of this 
kind which they can bear is not one which places the 
first advent at the commencement of the Christian dis- 
pensation, in which there arises an apostasy, and the 
second at the beginning of the millennial dispensation, 
from which there arises an apostasy likewise ; but is 
this, that the first advent took place when God ceased 



THE PHILOSOPHICAL ARGUMENT. J^> 

'- to wink at'*' universal heatlienism, and the second when 
he ceases to wink at universal apostasy. 

The counteraction of error by the Spirit of the Father 
and of Christ has hitherto been in such a way as that 
there is retained in the true, which then becomes pre- 
valent, a picture, or remembrance, or knowledge of the 
false, that good men may know and abhor it. Of course, 
every one acquainted with ecclesiastical history is aware 
of this ; and he who has made the philosophy of that 
history his study, can show, or at least perceive, the ra- 
tionale of it. When Ultramontanism shall be destroyed, 
the order of things then constituted will be such as to 
keep before the church a remembrance of the great 
adversary of Grod and his Christ. Just as Scripture 
leads us to expect the sad apostasy which has lain upon 
the civilized world as an overwhelming incubus, ruinous 
to the temporal and eternal welfare of men, so does it 
lead to the assurance of its certain overthrow for, and 
displacement by, a glorious Millennium. And even as 
we are directed by the truth of Grod in his Word to 
look for this downfal, so from his truth in history, 
from the constant method of the divine government, we 
discover the state of things which shall thereafter ob- 
tain, and are led thereby to believe that such a system 
shall then prevail, and such a scene be presented, as to 
remind those who see that time that the blessed Word 
has outlived all the hatred and plots of wicked priests 
and unscrupulous Jesuits, and all the dotard casuistry 
of self-conceited rationalists, and that it is flourisliing in 
power over the hearts of men when its deluded enemies 
are swept away. Thus shall we have a triumph of the 
divine Word — thus shall we liave a time when every 
knee shall bow at the name of Jesus., 



26 PREMTLLENNIALISM A DELUSION. 

How long this state of things may continue, we pre- 
sume not to fix. Whether it shall be a thousand, or 
three hundred and sixty thous:ind years, we do not 
know. But pass on to its end ; remembering the busy 
intellect of Satan, the time he shall then have had for 
maturing his plans, and his increased hatred to the cause 
of the Lord, because of his ignominious imprisonment 
proclahned in the face of heaven ; and remembering 
also that the constitution of man is of such a kind as 
that he seeks to rest in the visible, as that even the 
jMillennium cannot satisfy the cravings of his spirit as the 
heavenly glory and the visible Lord can ; remembering 
these things, we say, let us approach the end of that 
blessed period. And the same Word which led us to 
expect, as already stated, also leads to the idea that a 
universal Jesuitism, with a visible head, being still sought 
after, under the deceiving influence of the prince of 
lies, shall be obtained in the mighty Csesarianism of the 
end. Then shall be set up in the earth an embodiment 
of evil with an extent of sway unspeakably greater than 
the petty " universality" of the tyrant at Eome. But 
a small portion of the world's people yields an obedience 
to the present apostate despotism ; and even that por- 
tion. has regulations and concordats to limit the preten- 
sions of its head. But different shall it be towards " the 
time of the end." The peoples of the world, brought 
nigh to one another in a way hardly conceivable even 
in these days of progress, and incorporated into one 
great nation in language and interests, shall stand up 
against the Lord and his church. For even as it was 
when the flood came, shall it be when the Second Ad- 
vent takes place. As soon as men universally have con- 
sented to worship at Jehovah's lowly altar, they will 



THE PHILOSOPHICAL ARaUMEXT. ^i 

give over the idea of ^" a tower whose top shall reach 
to heaven." And then shall the Babel curse be re- 
moved, and the Babel dispersions be counteracted ; and 
the various families of the earth, divided no longer by 
selfish interests, but united in the one Spirit, shall turn 
to the Lord with a pure lip, and '- all the earth be of 
one language and one speech : '*' we shall have the one 
Noachie family again embraced in the Abrahamic church. 
If there shall be a final apostasy from Christianity, it 
shall be from a Christianity which shall have embraced 
the nations of the world, and made them one family. 
And that such an apostasy shall take place, the voice 
of Scripture and philosophy alike declares ; and this, to 
use a bold figure, when the world's body shall be so 
closely and Intimately compacted, as that one will shall 
act as readily on its difterent members (and not much 
less quickly) as the human will is operative throughout 
the members of our physical frame. Then shall it be 
as in the days of Xoah. The little church, hemmed in 
on all sides, shall be saved from utter ruin by the fiery 
deluge, and, floating away amid the cries of a lost world, 
shall it meet its Lord in the air. "As it was in the 
days of Noah, so shall also the coming of the Son of 
man be." Does the type throw light upon the anti- 
type ? Let us view the type then. ^Miile the ark is 
preparing, the Spirit of God is preaching to the " infi- 
dels" (1 Pet. iii. 19, 20) by the mouth of Noah. But 
his voice is unheeded, the world continues in its unbe- 
lief and its mirth : " they marry and are given in mar- 
ringe," they eat, and drink, and make merry, till the day 
that Noah enters the ark. Meanwhile the godly are 
dying out. As the work which was necessary di^aws to 
a close, the godly are taken away from the evil to come. 



28 PREMILLENNLiLISM A DELUSION. 

One by one the pious builders of the ark (for it was the 
church and not the world that built it) sleep with their 
fathers. At last Lamech is taken away, about five years 
before the flood ; and Methuselah, who had conversed 
with Adam, and who had been to the infidels a living 
token of the truth of those things which were preached, 
dies also, a few months before the world is drowned. 
Awful is the suspense now ! Not indeed to the ungodly 
world — they laugh at all, they mock the holy ones of 
God. But there is a suspense among the angels who 
look on — there is a suspense in that little family, the 
last remains of Grod's church. Yet Noah slacks not his 
hand ; he finishes his work, and he appeals — ^with wdiat 
earnestness ! — to those poor creatures now shut up un- 
der the wrath of God. The hundred and twenty years 
are now at a close ; the warning voice intunates as much ; 
the vrorld is on the eve of its deluge. Let us think of 
that eve — the eve of the deluge — of the judgment ! May 
we with the following elements attempt a picture, not 
altogether (Eev. xx. 9) one of fancy ? God's church is 
now a little flock ; the world is immensely multitudi- 
nous. That little flock — that one man — keeps the 
world in confusion. The world, disturbed with his omin- 
ous cry, hates him, and would tear him in pieces. 
That hated ark, too — that symbol of the old man's folly, 
of which he continually prates ! Is it to be endured 
that one man, talking about a God and an ark, is to 
give us so much annoyance '? How easy to get rid of 
them altogether ! Let us burn the whole — the man and 
his family, and that lumbering vessel together — let us 
'' encompass the camp of the saints." 

It is the eve of the deluge. It is the eve of the Sab- 
bath. For the last time has the voice cried in that 



THE PHILOSOPHICAL ASGUMEXT. 29 

awful wilderness, and its echoes been heard in the con- 
temptuous jeers of the '* scoffers/' The cry is gone : 
the voice of mercy speaks no more ; the lamp is lifted 
out of the midst of a guilty world ; the ungodly are 
left to their doom. Xoah has turned away from the 
scowling multitude, his heart crushed with grief, and 
his mind racked with suspense. He enters the ark. and 
" Grod shuts him in.'*' The dark night hangs sorrow- 
fully over the doomed world, but the morning dawns 
at last ; the first faint streaks of the Sabbath morn gild 
the eastern horizon. But, hark ! what noise is that ? 
There is a low, hushed, distant murmur, as of a multi- 
tude of people. Xearer, nearer swells the din. Savage 
outcries, terrible imprecations, fearful threats grate upon 
the ear. Behold ! That surrounding wood crashes be- 
fore them, and the masses of the ungodly, with demo- 
niac glee on their faces, with satarnc cruelty in their 
hearts, with flaming firebrands in their hands, rusli 
forth. But where is the ark ? Grod hath shut Xoah 
in ; he hath smitten the condemned with blindness ; 
and they grope about for the ark, " till the flood came 
and swept them all away." 

" As it was in the days of Xoah," so shall it be when 
the Lord himself will come to destroy utterly the in- 
fidel organization, to purify the earth from the effects 
of the Adamic curse, and to dwell therein for ever with 
his chiu'ch. It is then there shall be exhibited that 
state of things which humanity instinctively craves, but 
wliich it has hitherto souQ:ht in a delusive wav throuo^h 
Satanic devices. God has prepared such a state of 
things. He has promised it in his Word. He has 
stamped the hope of its realization in the deepest being 
of man. With a thousand diversities, the pantings of 



30 PREMILLEXNIALISM A DELUSION. 

burdened humanity, yea of the very creation subjected 
to vanity, are after this. It cannot be otherwise ; there 
is a vacuum till it be obtained. During the Millennium 
itself, the purest form of this acro5ca^a^ox/a, this earnest 
expectation, shall swell in every bosom where the first 
fruits of the Spirit are, as well as in '^the whole crea- 
tion.'' Till the great ideal is an experience, universal 
nature cannot but heave in throes of travail and of 
hope. 

Entering thus into the nature of the two great apos- 
tasies, there is a congruity in the first being supplanted 
by the Word and by the preaching of the gospel, and in 
the second being overwhelmed by the coming of the 
Lord himself. And if a congruity, then a certainty ; 
for all the ways of God are congruous. In the former 
case, we use the word supplanted, not in opposition to 
overwhelmed in the second, but for the obvious reason 
that " the stone cut out of the mountain without hands '' 
is to smite the Roman part of the image, and fill not 
only its place, but the place of all the other monarchies. 
It fills the earth ; the time being intimated in the two 
statements that the four monarchies are meant by the 
image, and that the stone strikes upon the feet — the 
latest period of Roman dominion. But we do not see 
that this supplanting shall be a gradually-increasing one. 
We see nothing in the Bible, or in God's general proce- 
dure in the gospel dispensation, to lead to the idea that 
Romanism, or any other of the Paganisms, shall fade 
awav before the mighty Word of God, as darkness be- 
fore the rising sun. We would extend the gospel and 
circulate the Scriptures to the widest possible extent, 
as the best means of counteracting Popery and heathen 
darkness, so long as we are permitted ; and this in order 



THE PHILOSOPHICAL ARGUMENT. 31 

to the production of as many luminous centres as pos- 
sible, which shall burst in light and beauty all around as 
soon as Satan is bound, and the cry sweeps athwart the 
firmament of the church, " Babylon is fallen !'" All this 
we would do, that not a year may elapse, after the mil- 
lennial period commences, before every nation under 
heaven may hear the glad sound. But still, a careful 
examination of Daniel ii. 34, 35, and many other Scrip- 
tures, clearly shows that some very sudden and violent 
destruction is to accompany the opening of the Word 
and the waving of the gospel banner in central Italy, 
that there may be clear space and unclaimed, in the wide 
world, for the kingdom of grace. 

We expect that Popery shall be destroyed thus: — 
When the gospel is carried into central Italy, or some 
powerful check made some other way to the pretensions 
of the Papacy, great will be the tumult. The triple 
crown will be commended with all solemnity, with 
many ceremonies, and not few " miracles,'' to the keep- 
ing of those Idngs and governors in whose councils the 
hierarchy, the Jesuits, rule supreme, and perhaps some 
others. These kings will give their power to the beast 
(Rev. xvii.), to wage war with the only nation or nations 
which may stand out for the gospel, and to crush any 
in their own dominions who may show their love to the 
truth. The struggle will commence. The church, and 
those who in the love of civil liberty may have joined 
with her, shall be crushed. The enemy will make 
merry. Meanwhile, " the woman that sitteth upon the 
beast," that is, the Papacy, will put forth her distinctive 
claim for absolute dominion. Even as now, when de- 
pendent for a protracted existence upon foreign bayo- 
nets, the Ultramontane claim is as arrogant as ever ; so 



O'J PREMILLENNIALISM A DELUSION: 

then, when held up into a new existence by the kings 
of the apocalyptic earth, will the same impudent de- 
sires be expressed. Yery possibly, at the time " the 
mount of the congregation in the sides of the north " 
(LXX., the exalted mountains, ^. q. kingdom, which lie 
towards the north, Isa. xiv. 13) is desolate beneath 
the foot of the great Popish league, the Man of Sin 
will unmask his Jesuitism, and claim all power in things 
civil and spiritual. And so fierce will be the effort to 
support the claim, that these very kings shall turn the 
sword against " the great c*y which reigneth over the 
kingdoms of the earth," and tiie whole An ti christian 
empire and system become like the chaff of the summer 
threshing-floors, which the wind carries away. \Miile 
the survivors are terrified and fainting, Satan is bound, 
the sword of the Spirit waves over the world, and the 
gospel is victorious. It would be a cheering and a 
lovely investigation to inquire into the state of matters 
during the bright era that shall then roll on. But it 
is not now in our way. May its spirit descend upon 
our weary hearts to bear us up in the approaching 
struggle! 

We now put our case. Two systems of Antichristian 
error are to be elaborated; the one requiring to be de- 
stroyed before the other can be set up. The second is 
of such a nature, as to require the visible advent of the 
Lord to put an end to it; whereas the first is of such a 
kind as that it ^viU admit of being destroyed in a dif- 
ferent way. Reason leads to the conclusion that it 
shall, the \Yord of God tells us it shall : from these two 
the church has generally believed it shall be so destroyed. 
We say the Word of God tells us it shall be put down 



THE PHILOSOPHICAL ARGCMENT. 33 

in another way; it does so, and makes tlie very distinc- 
tion that a philosophic inquiry would conduct us to, when 
(2 Thess. ii. 8) it distinguishes between the s-T/^avs/a 
rri; ^aoo-jdiag I.X. (described in Eev. xix. 11, &c.) and 
the ^aoo-j6ia itself, referred to in 1 Thess. iv. ; Rev. xx. 
9-lo; Matt. xxv. 31-46. But the MiUenniiun does, 
not commence till the first system of apostasy is broken 
in pieces, and it is at a close when the second begins : 
therefore the Second Advent is not premillennial. 

The only possible exception which can be taken, by 
one who understands the constancy of the divine pro- 
cedure in destroying the errors which arise in the church 
by suitable and congruous means, must be by impugn- 
ing the validity of the theory of a future Caesarianism. 
We see not why this exception shoidd be taken. Until 
some undigested writings appeared in the present gene- 
ration, there was a very general persuasion in the 
church that a falling away would take place after the 
millennial prosperity and blessedness. Philosophy leads 
to such a persuasion. And surely there are statements 
in Scripture calculated to give rise to it. We cannot 
conceive any one escaping from such a belief, save by 
an exposition both forced and unnatural. We have 
both the native meaning of these hints of Scripture, 
and an extensive philosophic generalization, declaring 
that there shall be a postmillennial apostasy, and that 
it will be of a more terrible kind than Popery itself. 
More extensive it will be ; for whereas the Papal em- 
braces Christendom, it will embrace the world. More 
fierce against aU religion and religious men it will be ; 
for the growth of every thing is progressive, and the 
cycles of error and misery enlarge as they lie distant 
from their centre or origin. And if the system we liave 

c 



34 



PREMILLENNIALISM A DELUSION. 



indicated under the name of Caesarianism — a name we 
found ready to our hand — be not of such a nature, we 
are at a loss to conceive what else could be. And if 
this be admitted, we care not what it may be called ; 
you may call it by any word you deem more suitable. 
But if the thing be admitted, then there is no difficulty 
in j)ercei\dng that a demonstration can be given, prov- 
ing that the Second Advent is not premillennial. 



THE THEOLOGICAL JlSB BIBLICAL ARGUMENT. 35 



PART IL 

THE THEOLOGICAL AND BIBLICAL ARGUMENT, 

We may call the preceding remarks the philosophy of 
the question. We shall now examine it upon theolo- 
gical and Scriptural grounds, which will lead us more 
minutely to the one point at issue, and which is the 
special subject of this essay. There are several ways 
of settling the question proposed to me. The idea of 
the premillenarians may be shown to be inconsistent 
with certain general facts and principles ; and if these 
admit of a more easy solution, or if the proof of them be 
generally received, then it falls to the ground though 
not directly analyzed. This mode of settling the mat- 
ter seems to content very many who have given but 
little special attention to the subject. Again, there are 
certain passages appealed to by the advocates of the 
premillennial system of prophetic interpretation, and of 
course they would not for a moment maintain a theory 
which tliey did not believe to be founded on holy 
Scripture ; if, then, these texts can be shown to have 
really and demonstrably another meaning, or at least if 
it can be shown that they do not contain premillen- 
nialism — though their real meaning might not be 
reached, then surely the whole system will fall to the 



80 PREMILLENNIALISM A DELUSION, 

ground — tlien surely its advocates will give up the 
idea. And again, a number of incidental matters, which 
cannot easily be put in categorical arrangement, may 
throw very much light upon the subject, when seen 
through the medium furnished by the two first lines of 
argument ; and this to such an extent as to make us 
wonder how such views could ever be held by men who 
know and love their Bibles, as truly the great part of 
our premillenarian friends do. It would seem as if the 
starting point — the doctrinal system or its unity — the 
rules of Biblical hermeneutik — or some recondite prin- 
ciples essentially idiosyncratic in their origin and ope- 
ration, induced the ultimate diversity. We are inclined 
to trace the diverging lines appearing in the two modes 
of explaining passages, to a bent received by them, or at 
least to the starting of them, from two doctrinal ideas. 
But whether we shall be able to explain the reason of 
premillennialism, we undertake to prove satisfactorily 
that it is altogether an erroneous system. We trust to 
do so, by Grod's grace, in a spirit of meekness, and with 
esteem for those from whom we differ. We sincerely 
believe that they are seeking the truth as well as our- 
selves. They would not for a moment retain the theory 
if they did not think it the truth of Grod. 

The two leading principles of interpretation, the fol- 
lowing of which seems to give rise to the opposite views 
which are held on this subject, are these : — that the 
Millennium is a spiritual thing entirely, and therefore 
the author of it is the Holy Ghost, acting precisely as 
he does in the individual when regenerating his heart, 
and implying of course a civil and visible economy 
sweetly adapted ; the second, as gathered from Justin 
Martyr, or John William Petersen, or the writers of 



THE THEOLOLilCAL AXD BIBLICAL ARGUMENT. O t 

the present clay, that in addition to this it is a visible 
and material state, having Jesus Christ and his resusci- 
tated saints visibly in the midst of it, thus making it a 
matter entirely unique, and having no fac-simile on a 
small scale, and no corres23onding equivalent, in any 
part of the church's history. There is evidently a great 
diversity between these two opinions, requiring to a great 
extent a different \T.ew of certain passages of Scripture. 
and a different dogmatik — a doctrinal system not by any 
means differing in toto, but in some of its parts, and in 
the unity and coherence of the whole. If that which 
the Bible promises as the Millennium of the church is 
either to be introduced by or characterized by the visible 
advent of om^ Lord, then its nature must differ very 
much from that which should be effected by the Spirit 
of the Father and of Christ working according to his 
proper nature. And, in fact, one very substantial rea- 
son many of our theologians have for dissenting from 
our premillenarian fiiends, \\T.thout giving very much 
or very minute attention to certain texts and arguments 
they adduce, arises from the somewhat meagre theo- 
logy which has wellnigh universally accompanied their 
theory. The present is not, indeed, the epoch of mas- 
sive divinity. But still, sundry elements are more dilu- 
tive of it than one could well wish. Our friends blame 
us for manifesting impatience as soon as their system i^ 
mentioned. It is a pity such a tiling should be exhi- 
bited, but more so that it should be merited. The eye 
of the practised builder soon detects a juttmg stone, or 
an unplumbed fraction in an extensive building. ^Nlueh 
more will a tolerably able theologian, possessed of tlie 
degree of dialectic faculty necessary to make him sucli, 
be able to detect the disjointing or disorganizing* ole- 



38 PREMILLEXXIALISM A DELUSIOX. 

ment vrlien it intrudes inio. and juts out from, the 
temple of truth. And we believe a very few remarks 
will explain the reason, if not the reasonableness, of this 
impatience with Avhieh we are blamed, and be wellnigli 
sufficient to dismiss the theory itself. 

The fundamental principle of Bible interpretation is 
that suppKed by the apostle in the fifth chapter of his 
Epistle to the Eomans. We may take two or three of 
its particulars : — Even as Adam is the covenant head c»f 
his natural posterity, so is Christ, the second Adam, of 
his spiritual children ; even as Adam stood (or fell ) for 
those who were in Mm. ^o Christ stood for all who were 
in him ; even as from Adam flows to all liis posterity 
descending fi^om him by ordinary generation the \Tiais, 
so from Christ to all who are his by spiritual genera- 
tion flows the antidote ; yea, as from Adam flows the 
ordinary generation itself, so from Christ flows the 
spiritual regeneration ; even as Adam was overcome^ 
and in him the humanity, so Christ overcomes, and in 
him the election. And so on might we exhibit the 
parallelisms. There is one more, the one to which we 
specially refer — even as Adam, the one covenant head, 
conveys, though unseen, liis guilt and his image to all for 
whom he stood, so the Lord, the new covenant head. 
conveys to all for whom he died his righteousness and 
his image, being also unseen. Even though there were 
no doctrinal reasons for it, the very nature of things 
implies the imisibility of Adam, while the effects of his 
visibility are flowing down through the race ; and there 
are many such reasons besides the type and the natinx- 
of things, also implying the necessity for the in\'isibi- 
lity of the Lord while the work of redemption is going 
on. It is bv faith that everv elect soul shall be made 



THE THEOLOGICAL AND BIBLICAL ARGUMENT. 39 

a partaker of the redemption purchased by Christ ; but 
where would be the place for faith if the glorified Ee- 
deemer were visible ? Adam required to be visible for 
a time ; and now the effects of that visibility, so far as 
he was a covenant head, are flowing down to all the 
humanity "by blood;" and the Lord required to be 
visible for a time, and now the effects of that visibility 
are flowing forth from him to all the election by the 
Holy Ghost. Why should we confine the parallel to 
some particulars when the invisibility of both covenant 
heads is as much a particular as any other, is as neces- 
sary to the scheme of God and of truth, and is distinctly 
intimated in John i. 13 ? As is Adam in this particu- 
lar to the end of time, so is the Lord. And then both 
heads are made visible again — the Lord as the judge, 
and Adam as the first who shall stand at the tribunal. 
All this is disjointed by our friends, if their system has 
any meaning in it at all. Just as they catch hold of one 
or two particulars in many of the types, as, for example, 
that of " the days of Noah'" (Matt, xxiv.) referred to in 
the first part, so do they in explaining the parallelism 
of the two covenant heads. But the type and antitype 
agree in many more particulars than they take account 
of. And it is easy for the eye of one who knows the 
theological system, to the extent that every minister of 
the Word ought, to run over the concinnity of truth — 
the x.ccTaPTi6fjjog 6(fiiLaroc^ and to smile at the fervid 
fancies which hang but too loosely to some of the sepa- 
rated parts. 

Then, again, it does not require much power of mind 
to compare their theory with some such syllogism as the 
following argument exhibits : — A glorified body cannot 
dwell on the earth till it be renewed ; indeed, the two 



40 PEEMILLEXXLiLISM A DELUSION. 

events are expressly declared to synclironize. — i Rom. 
viii. 17-25 ; 1 Jolin iii. 2 : Rev. xxi.) If the renewal of 
the earth take not place till after the Millennium, then 
the Lord's glorified body cannot be in it during that 
time. But if the earth be renewed before the Millen- 
nium, that is, at its commencement, and the Lord come 
to dwell in it. then no unglorilied or unspuitual body 
can remain in it dimng that time — it cannot even be a 
grave to dead saints, or to the vricked, after it is made 
new. It would first of all be a contradiction to say 
that glorified bodies, one or more, could dwell in an un- 
renewed earth. "\"\liy are Enoch and Elijah not here ? 
And, secondly, it would equally be a contradiction to 
maintain that a renewed earth — -'the new earth'*' — 
could be a grave. Is the conclusion a difiicult one ? 
We fear it sweeps the theory of our friends clean away. 
But the truth is. an earnest mind that grasps these 
thmgs clearly cannot help a feeling of impatience with 
the feminine sentimentalism about the sweetness and 
gentleness of •' dear Jesus.''' which mingles so abun- 
dantly with the emotional in this matter. Xo doubt. 
earth never saw beauty and sweetness like liis. Eden 
was not cheered with so lovely a flower, nor did its 
fragrance breathe aught so revising and precious as his 
name. But he is more than this — even to the feelings 
of his own children he is more than this. Ethan in the 
eighty-ninth Psalm uses an epithet of overwhelming 
meaning and magnitude when he says, " Terrible God 
in the assembly of holy ones," =''w~p~"''ic;p yyj -s . Little 
do people know what it is they desire when seeking the 
visibility of ^* the King that scattereth evil with his 
eyes,'*' and whose glorious appearance simk even a Daniel 
and a John into feebleness and a kind of death. The 



THE THEOLOGICAL AND BIBLICAL AKGUMEXT. 41 

Lord will not any more lav aside his glory. It is now 
his royal robe, and one that was dearly won. He is 
clothed with majesty and brightness. And only a . 
church made " like him '' can see him as he is without 
wailing. 

It is thus that the subject of premillennialism might 
be thrown aside, as it often is. And we might stop here, 
were it not our design to give it a thorough examina- 
tion, both to show how baseless it is, and also to catch 
much precious truth it has led many to miss. 
. As regards the expression, " the personal advent,'^ 
which is generally used by our friends to point out the 
Lord's \dsible coming, in contradistinction to all other 
manifestations of him which might be supposed, we have 
a few words to say. It seems to be used in such a way 
as to implv that all who hold the Millennium will take 
place before the Second Advent, deny the Lord's per- 
sonal presence with his church during that time. It 
might very well be replied to this, if we (as they say) 
deny the Lord's personal presence with his church dur- 
ing that time because we reject a visible advent, surely 
they who confine the Lord's personal presence to the times 
after the visible advent, deny any personal presence 
with the church during the times before. In other 
words, by their peculiar use of this phrase, they affirm 
we have no personal presence of the Lord now. We 
enter our protest against any such use of this phrase, 
as conveying an idea utterly at variance with sound 
doctrine. There may be, there is, a personal advent 
of the Lord in the Holy Ghost, as well as in the \dsibi- 
lity of his glorified human body at the last day ; and 
there is as real a personal presence of the Lord in his 
church now^ as there shall be when his bodv is aeain 



42 - PREMILLENNIALISM A DELUSION. 

visible in the midst of it. Let us examine this : it will . 
throw a flood of light on our investigation. 

By reason of the hypostatical union of the two na- 
tures in the j)erson of our Redeemer, the xoivc^via 
ihi(fiiLCLro)v non tantum est verhalis, sed realis (the com- 
munication of properties is not only verbal but real.) 
It is so, however, only when viewed in the Person, and 
when spoken of the Person. When we make the inter- 
change to be from the one nature to the other, as the 
Lutherans do, we fall into grievous error, so as even to 
destroy the properties of both. We cannot say the 
human nature is ubiquitous because it is united to the 
divine, for then it would cease to be humanity alto- 
gether. But while watching against this language and 
its consequences, as a kind of Eutychianism, we should 
also be careful not to use such words as '' the human 
nature suffered," the human nature ascended, the hu- 
man nature wdll come again ; for all this would lead us 
directly into Nestorianism. For, if we say the human 
nature suffered, or the human nature will come again, 
then, as a nature cannot be an agent — (the divine na- 
ture itself being active only in personal operations) — 
but it is a person that acts, that suffers, that goes, that 
comes — it is really an ascription of two Persons to the 
Lord Jesus Christ. When we say that our Lord, 
viewed either as to the divine or as to the human na- 
ture, did, does, will do any thing, then we mean that a 
Person does it, or that he does it personally. Thus we 
say a Person suffered, or Christ suffered personally. 
Whereas, while it is right to say he suffered in his hu- 
man nature, it would be improper for us to say that the 
human nature of Christ suffered; for this would be 
using a form of speech which can only be used of a per- 



THE THEOLOaiCAL AND BIBLICAL ARaUMEXT. 43 

son, and the human nature of the Lord is not his Per- 
son, but subsists in his Person, being assumed into union 
with it. Wherefore, to express any act of the Lord 
whatsoever, we must attribute it to a Person. It is cor- 
rect to say the Lord was personally on the earth, and 
that he will come personally to it again ; but not more 
so, than that he is personally in the midst of his church 
now, and has always been so. Wherefore the expres- 
sion, " the personal advent of the Lord," is a correct one 
in itself ; and if the doctrine of premillennialism were 
true, it would be right to indicate it by these words. 
But the idea that a personal coming of the Lord, and 
his personal presence in the earth, necessarily implies 
that they shall be visible, or that a personal reign neces- 
sarily means a visible reign, is pure error. It is Xes- 
torianism. We all hold that the Lord will come again 
visibly, and that he will reign visibly ; but to make this 
all one as personally, and then to affirm that they 
who deny a ^isible advent at a particular part of the 
church's history, do thereby disown a personal reign 
during the Millennium, is not only bad in doctrine, but 
equally so in logic. K the Lord come at all — ^if he 
reign at all — it is necessarily in a personal manner ; 
and therefore he reigns personally in men's hearts, if he 
reign there at all. He reigns personally over men and 
things now. A\Tien he comes in ordinances, it is in a 
personal way he does so. Though not personally in 
the elements, he is personally in the sacraments. It is 
well we should remember, when we have connnunion 
with the Lord Jesus Christ now by his Spmt, Word, and 
ordinances, or hereafter, " eye to eye," that it is not an 
intercourse with a system of truths, nor a communion 
with a nature we enjoy, but with the personal Lord. 



44 pre:viillexxi.vlism a delusion. 

/ It is a Person who saves us, who comforts us, who comes 

\ to us with words of peace, and affection, and consola- 
tion. It is in the bosom of a Person we lay our wearied 

j spirits, by faith and love now, and by affectionate enjoy- 

^ ment hereafter. 

We do not, therefore, deny a personal coming, pre- 
sence, reign, of the Lord in the Millennium, when we 
affirm that he will come and reign then, just as now, in 
the hearts of behevers, and hold that the advent which 
the Bible says shall be ^dsible will not be premillennial. 
But surely they do deny the personal presence of the 
Lord with his people now, who use that expression as 
synonpnous with visibility. We trust it is only a 
thoughtless use of the word, though it manifests withal 
too much ignorance of matters peculiarly necessary to 
be known in the present day. But however used, it in- 
dicates a general thoughtlessness and want of precision, 
which must tell against the system at the head of which 
it stands. 

And now we shall approach our subject in a more 
direct w ay. We all hold that the Lord will come again 
in a visible manner. The question is not concerning 
the fact, but the time. We all agree in affirming that 
it is the church's hope, and the hope of each believer in 
particular ; and that the church, and each one per- 
sonally, should be waiting and w^atching for it with 
proper preparation and desire, even so as to be able 
daily to say, '^ Come Lord Jesus, come quickly. Amen." 
And we hope to show, in the fourth part of this essay, 
in opposition to the charge which our friends brmg 
against us, that it is only upon our principles, and not 
upon theirs, that this result can be expected to arise 
from the injunctions to watchfulness presented in the 



THE THEOLOGICAL XSB BIBLICAL ARGUMENT. 4.) 

New Testament. Meanwhile, the only question we dis- 
cuss is ^^ !o : — Will the Second Advent be before and in 
ordr .• to the Millennium ? Unhesitatingly we answer — 
No. To prove which, we shall first examine the lead- 
ing reasons adduced for such an idea, and then state 
several against it. Being confined to certain limits with 
this essay, we shall be unable to embrace every thing 
which might be said on the subject. However, that is 
not necessary, if the principal matters be examined, and 
certain guiding rules be laid down. 

The starting point of the whole system of premillen- 
nialism seems to be, "the two resurrections." Our 
friends look upon it as one of their strongest positions, 
if not the very strongest — ^with how much reason shall 
innnediately be seen. Our own view of " the first re- 
surrection,'' we give in Part III., and shall only now 
examine what they say. They tell us there are two re- 
surrections — ^the first, that of the saints when the thou- 
sand years commence ; the second, that of the wicked 
at a future period. Some say the first is of the martyrs 
only. But let them take which they choose — our line 
of argument will meet either. They attempt to prove 
this from some texts, and from a broad statement that 
the New Testament uniformly recognises a difierence 
between ai/aoTac/g tc/jv vskpc/jv and ava(^ra<ric fx. to)v vsz^ajv, 
the resurrection of the dead, and the resurrection from 
among the dead. Now, if this were the case, it would 
go far to settle the question. If the w/.ooi (the dead) 
mean those who are dead and buried (for Luke ix. 60 has 
nothing to do here), and if part of them, whether all 
the saints, or only the martyrs, be raised at one time 
and part at another, then we say, till the Lord come, not 
one of these vsx^o/ shall be raised, and the only two 



46 PREMILLEXXLiLISM A DELUSION. 

times which coiild be introduced by these resurrections 
must be the Millennium and the final Judgment. If, 
then, this were really the case, there would be little 
difficulty in proving the very converse of our proposi- 
tion that premillennialism is a delusion. But we have 
distinctly to state that holy Scripture makes no dis- 
tinction of the kind. If our friends could prove that 
it does — ^if they coidd prove that a resurrection of some 
parties takes place long before that of others, we would 
on the instant accept their whole system, for the unity 
of Bible truth would then carry all other matters into a 
different form. And if we prove that the Word recog- 
nises nothing of the kind, but that the whole thing is a 
mistake, will they agree with us ? We should hope so 
— we believe they will. 

In regard to the Greek particle i%^ we may make an 
observation or two, especially as we shall require to 
analyze the force of two other prepositions in the course 
of our essay. It is very difficult always to find out 
the precise import of the G-reek prepositions, or, indeed, 
of any language, and we should feel imwilling to base 
much upon them in an argument. We are to be guided 
more by their use, according to examples which may 
be adduced, than by their native meaning. There can 
be no doubt but the proper meaning of sx is, to go out 
of any place, or to take one thing ovi of another, or to 
retire from (like a-o). But this can constitute no 
foundation for an argument, if it can be shown that 
the major proposition drawn from the native meaning 
of this particle is not always true, and next, that it is 
not so in the very case referred to. Xow, this can be 
done. It can be shown that sy. has come by usage to 
lose its native meaning altogether, or to have affinity 



THE THEOLOGICAL .iXD BIBLICAL ARGUMENT. 4< 

to it in the remotest manner ; and also, that it is used 
for an absolute genitive, as in Luke ii. 35, which might 
be confirmed by examples we are prepared to produce 
from Hebrew, Arabic, and some of the continental 
languages, exhibiting the same construction. But it is 
needless to occupy space with them, when it can be 
shown that it is used for a simple genitive in the case 
before us, and that really there is no difference between 
av\ rm vsxpmv and av: sz roov vspc^wv. We have examined 
every passage, and can affirm that there is no exception. 
The following reasons will make this plain. 

1. Wlien the Sadducees came to the Lord to puzzle 
him about the resurrection, he proved to them that 
they were in error in denying the anastasis. In doing 
which, he uses about the very same- party, and as simply 
equivalent to that anastasis of which they were speak- 
ing, both of these expressions, — avac>Ta(ng rm vsk^ojv and 
av : SK 7(j)v vi'/.^Mv. He uses the three expressions in- 
discriminately as exponents of the one idea which was 
in their minds, and which they denied. — (Matt. xxii. 
31 ; Luke xx. 35.) Let both places be read with the 
context, marking in Matthew the 23d, 28th, 30th, 31st 
verses, and in Luke, the 27th, 33d, 3oth, 36th, 38th 
verses. 

2. That which the Sadducees called avac-a^ic, in 
Matthew, &c. they call also av: i% (rwv) vs^c^wv in Acts 

^*>k^2. (the reading is r?jv sx, %. r. X. not rm sx, as some 
have it ; see Tischendorf ;) and av : (rwv) vsx^wv in Acts 
xxiii. 6, 8, according to Luke's explanation of what 
they held and said. For Paul uses this form of words, 
(v. 6), and Luke (v. 8) tells us it was what the Saddu- 
cees did not believe, because they denied the anastasis. 
And, lest it should be imagined by any that our Lord 



48 PREMILLEXXIALISM A DELUSIOX. 

introduces a new or different idea in Luke xx. 35, by 
using £/., from what we have in Matthew, Paul tells us 
he hoped for this resurrection of which the Lord speaks, 
and in doing so leaves out the s/. ; and besides, when re- 
ferring to the ^'ery expression (in Acts xxiv. 15), which 
he had made use of in chap, xxiii. 6, he calls it a\ : 
j/5X^wi' d/KaiCfiv Ts zai adiKojv (see verse 21.^ So that 
these phrases are not only all equivalent, but pomt out 
one simultaneous event so distincth", that we wonder 
how any who are acquainted with then' Grreek Testa- 
ment could imagine a difference of parties, or of times, 
of the kind our friends desiderate, to be indicated by 
the one of them which has sz. Tliis one paragraph is 
sufficient to prove that the good and bad (Matt. xiii. 47, 
49), the just and unjust, shall rise together, and that 
this is what the Bible calls the anastasis. Wliether 
before or after the Millennium remains to be seen. But 
in the mean time, we say, our friends are not prepared 
to commence then' Millennium with such a resurrection 
as this, unless they be prepared to take up such ground 
as shall oblige us to prove the very fact of a ]Millennium 
being promised to the church of God before '• the 
kingdom of glor}^ come/"' We do not suppose they 
would ever think of having recourse to the refinement, 
that the Lord adopted the style of speech which the 
Sadducees understood, or that they, in denying the 
anastasis, denied, of course, every kind of it, and that, 
therefore, it was unnecessary for the Lord, or the 
apostle, when brought into contact with them, to ex- 
plain the difference, but that still they might have their 
own meaning, which we, who admit the doctrine, can 
discover. Such a refinement has already been brushed 
away by a reference to the personal hope of the apostle 



THE THEOLOGICAL AND BIBLICAL ARGUMENT. 49 

Paul ; but there are other grounds on which we could 
know how to deal with it. 

3. We might take some other instances of the use of 
these phrases. Paul (explained by the Athenian phi- 
losophers, and by Luke), uses jj ava6Ta(Sig and av : 
viK^ctiv as equivalent, in Acts xvii. 18, 32. But we need 
not occupy room any more. Surely it is not needful ! 
We have the Lord, Paul, Luke, the Sadducees, the 
heathen Philosophers, giving testimony in the matter. 

4. The Lord's own resurrection is spoken of under all 
these modes of expression. — Acts i. 22, ii. 31, iv. 33, 
and 1 Cor. xv. 12, 13, 20, 21, and Col. i. 18, and 
Rom. i. 4, and Eev. i. 5, (where there is so little autho- 
rity for 'TT^MToroTtog s;c z.r.X. as to make us wonder how 
the textus receptus, and even the " textus ab omni- 
bus receptus" of the Elzevir press should have adopted 
the reading, when, as is shown by Tischendorf, the 
ancient Codices, forty versions, &c., &c., do not contain 
the s;c at all.) 

5. The only diiFerence recognised by Scripture is the 
ava6ra6ig ^w/jg and the av\ zo/(ysc/jg, John v. 29, Luke 
xiv. 14, Acts xxiv. lo ; where, let it be observed, the 
one event spoken of is the anastasis, and the parties 
are divided into the two classes, av : rcfiv biy.atm, same 
as av\ Trig ^^^i, andav: rojv adiKOJv = av : rrjg K^Kfsojg, 
The one class is that of the righteous, and the other 
that of the wicked. Again, the time of this resurrection 
may be gathered from Heb. vi. 2, and John xi. 23, 24. 
But that is not now in our way. 

Thus, then, it will be seen how gratuitous is the 
assertion that there is a diiFerence between the expres- 
sions, and much more so to say that Scripture does always 
recognise it. And we fear our friends did not take their 

D 



50 PREMILLENNIALISM A DELUSION. 

Bibles and give tlie matter a proper examination before 
making such a statement, and building a delusive theory 
upon it. If they did, they are but ill acquainted with 
the Greek language. 

There are a number of texts to which they refer us 
in support of their system. It would be a waste of 
time to examine them all, unless we desired to give an 
exposition of the Word instead of an argument. But 
in this and the succeeding parts we shall both analyze 
the principle, and give such explanations as will remove 
the difficulty from any others. Let us begm with Ee- 
velation, the 20th chapter : " I saw an angel come 
down from heaven." All agree in explaining this 
angel to mean the Lord Jesus Christ. Does it say he 
came down to the earth, (chap. ix. 1, f/g r^jv yriv) ? No. 
Of course, we admit that he will be found to have 
reached the earth. What we mean is, that the termi- 
nating object of his descent was not the earth, but 
something else, which shall be mentioned immediately. 
Does it say he came down visibly ? No ; for the words 
are precisely the same as those in chap. x. l^ which are 
confessedly '^ apocalyptic;'' the standing with one foot 
on the earth and the other on the sea (v. 2) being an 
impossibility to a human body which has not lost its 
properties b}" being assumed into union with a divine 
Person, but which occupies an extent of space no greater 
than any one of our bodies doth. For what purpose 
comes he down ? To bind the old serpent, the deceiver, 
and to cast him into the bottomless pit. Is -this de- 
ceiver visible ? No ; and, therefore, he can only be seized 
in an invisible way, and by an invisible person. What, 
and where, are the delusions which are to be swept 
from the church and the world ? They are not men. 



THE THEOLOGICAL AND BIBLICIL ARGUMENT. 51 

but principles ; even the principles and elements of the 
apostasy described in 2 Tim. iii. 1, 5, (and counteracted, 
mark, — vers. 14-17 — by the Holy Scriptures), ^hich 
are to be found in men's hearts. "^Yliere does the Lord 
come down to, then, to accomplish this great work ? To 
men s hearts. And it is there that the old serpent is 
seized, and thence he is expelled. How can the Lord 
come down to, and dwell in the hearts of men ? Li the 
Holy Grhost, and by faith — the faith of Grod's elect. 

As regards verses 4-7, they shall be explained in the 
next part, when we speak of the first resurrection. 
But, meanwhile, who reign ? The souls of the martyrs. 
WTiere is it that these souls are represented as being 
during the time of Pagan and Papal supremacy '? 
" Under the altar." (Chap. vi. 9-11.) Where is that ? 
Isot within but without the vail, that is, in the church. 
In other words, they are still viewed as a part of the 
church. In the sixth chapter, we find them praying for 
something in the way explained. Gen. iv. 10 ; in the 
twentieth chapter they have the answer to their prayers, 
(in the same style of speaking, of course.) They pray 
— they receive the answer ; where ? In both cases with- 
out the vail, that is, within the church ; for the altar is 
without the vail. During the sad time of witness-bear- 
ing, they are under the altar, that is, they are slain ; 
and their blood is crying from the church for vengeance 
upon the persecutors. During the Millennium, the very 
commencement of which takes place in the destruction 
of the persecutors, they are represented as reigning. 
And both are in the same place — the church, and with 
the same kind of ^'isibility. With whom do they reign ? 
" with Christ" [Mzra rov X^/oTou. In explanation of 
which, we suggest what follows. There are two expres- 



.fj PREMILLENNIALISM A DELUSION. 

sions ill the New Testament wliicli have been rendered 
" with Christ" by our translators, but which have very 
different meanings. They are (tvv X^kstm, and /uusra rov 
X^i()TQu; the former occurring in Phil. i. 23, the other 
in this place of the Apocalypse. Now, were it merely 
our desire to deprive premillennialism of this passage, it 
would be enough to say that the language is not nearly 
so strong as that which is used in chapter xiv. 1, which 
our friends will allow, we suppose, to be entirely apoca- 
lyptic. Or, we might accept Bengel's words, (erunt 
cum Christo et Deo, non Deus et Christus cum illis : 
igitur id regnum erit in coelo), and say that it is a very 
different thing that is meant by their being with Christ, 
from what it would have been had the words read 
'^ Christ was with them.'" 

But all this would leave us without the meaning of 
the passage ; and it is worth while to take some trouble 
to try and obtain the meaning of a portion of Scripture 
which has occasioned so much difficulty. If Bengel's 
meaning were the true one, the reading in this verse 
would have been tfuv X^kstoj, and in the sixth verse either 
@sov r^ai X^/Croii, or roL/ ^sok 7iai rov X^k^tov avrov (chap, 
xi. 15, and xii. 10.) Although, indeed, we need not 
complicate the inquiry by taking in the sixth verse, 
which speaks, not of the martyrs, but of those who 
shall live in those days, we may merely say of it in 
passing, that Isa. Ixi. 6, and Matt. v. 9, give us the first 
reading we mention as necessary, if the idea were an 
absolute one, and Kev. xi. 1 5 the second, if the idea 
were relative. The meaning of this shall appear imme- 
diately. 

The reading is /xsra rov X^k^tov, with the article, 
though Stephamis and, following him, Mill omit it. 



THE THEOLOaiClL AND BIBLICAL ARGUMENT. .33 

There are two things in it which require special notice, 
viz., the preposition and the article. As regards the 
preposition /^j/sra, every Grreek scholar knows it has 
not at all the close connection of tr-jv. For whereas (Tuv 
7tvd g/va/ means to be personally in company with any 
one, /xgra tivoc s/va/ is to be on the side of any one, or 
to be in some way C07inected luith any one.^ When 

* I have already had occasion to take notice of the Greek par- 
ticles. A few more words are necessary. It is hardly possible to 
give a precise rule to indicate the difierence between c-w and u,iTa, 
governing the genitive. Some grammarians state the difference us 
I have done above, and others say they are used often indiscrimi- 
nately, " in nonnullis phrasibus nihil differt f^ira, a praepositione 
fl-y?." I believe, however, that the usage in the New Testament is 
very much as I have said. To show which, the following examples 
may be referred to : 1 Thess. iv. U, 17 ; Col. iv. 7, 9; Gal. ii. 3; 
Acts i. 14, 17, ii. U, iv. 13, 27, v. 1, 26, xiii. 7,xvi. 3. We need not 
increase the number. These are enough to show that the preposi- 
tion which would suit the idea of premillenniarism is <nv. There 
could not be a more favourable passage for testing this than Rev. 
iii. 21. But the idea of personal company is not conveyed there, it 
is only participation in a state that is pointed out. I do not sup- 
pose it is necessary to say that all my references are to the Scrip- 
tures in the original, or to the Septuagint. 

I have to speak of the Greek article, and may also notice it 
in this note. I hardly think any exception will be taken with what 
is to be said. But lest there should, I would remind my readers of 
the following rule. W^hen a proper name is altogether indeterminate, 
that is, when it is absolute ; or when there is only one individual 
bearing that name, the article is never (I think) used. But when 
the name is not altogether indefinite, or when it cowceys some idea 
with it, then the article is used. We may give an example or two. 
When the name Jesus is used without the article as in Matt. viii. 
29; Luke ii. 21; Matt. xiv. 1, it is always determined what Jesus it 
is by some other word or circumstance, otherwise it always has the 
article as in Acts iv. 13, because Jesus was a common name. But 
when " Christ" has the article before it, it is always to convey some 
other idea than the personal one; for there was only one who had 
that name. Thus " the name of Christ" when expressed by re o:ou.m, 
X^ia-Tov is very different from ro oyou,ac rov X^;a-7ov. the one meaning 



04 PIIEMILLENNLU.ISM A DELUSION. 

Paul expresses iiis strong desire to depart and be in his 
Lord's company instead of his continuing in the com- 
pany of men, he uses the particle <s\)v and not (j^zra, " I 
desire to depart and to be with Christ" cov '^^i6roj. 
And we maintain, that if the Lord's visible presence 
were referred to in this place of the Apocalypse, then 
(S'jv would have been used. Compare 2 Peter i. 18 ; 
1 Thess. iv. 17. The word, however, is /xsra, and con- 
veys the idea of participation with that satisfaction 
which is spoken of when it is said, " He shall see of the 
travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied ;" a being satis- 
fied, found not only in the Eedeemer himself, but in his 
members, with whose triumph he and the slain souls 
under the altar reign, as shaU now appear. For let us 
inquire how the name XpK^rog is used with and without 
the article. We are not prepared (who is ?) to explain 
the reason of the use of the article before the name 
'^ Christ'' in every instance. But of this we are very 
sure, that when the word is used strictly to point out 
the personal Eedeemer without any other idea, it has 
not the article. We feel quite prepared to argue this 
with any one. Yrhenever the article is used, there is 
some relative idea contained, — always a reference to 
something else than the Lord, as the doctrine, the gos- 
pel, the church, the anointing, the official capacity, the 
Jews, &c. We cannot exhaust the subject here ; but 
this may be stated as certain, that there is a marked 
precision in the use or the omission of the article vdth 
this name. For example, when the apostle speaks of 
the Lord without any regard to his relative or official 

C/hrist himself, the other the Christian name. And so the doctrine 
of Christ means the Christian doctrine, when the article is used be- 
fore Christ, kc. 



THE THEOLOGICAL AND BIBLICAL ARGOLEXT. 00 

position, as lie does in 1 Cor. xv., witli the exception of 
verses 15, 22, 23, the article is not used. But why its 
marked use in these three verses ? Because the fifteenth 
contains a fine use of the mystical doctrine of the unity 
of Christ and his church ; and the other two point out 
his covenant relation to that church. For you will ob- 
serve, the article is put before Adam in the same way, 
whereas it is not in Kom. v. 14, where he is spoken of 
strictly as an individual. Compare Gal. iii. 16 ; 2 Cor. 
V. 16 ; Eom. ^n.. 4, 8, 9, and viii. 9, 17, 34 ; John ix. 
22, in all which the Lord is personally referred to. 
Again, in connection with the word faith, as '' faith in 
Christ," " the faith of Christ," ^^ believe in Christ," we 
never have the article ; for the believing act termmates 
upon the personal Eedeemer. Once more, the follow- 
ing expressions do not admit of the article before the 
name : to walk with Christ — to be crucified with Christ 
— dead with Christ— risen with Christ — to live with 
Christ — hcKS with Christ — to be with Christ, — tliere 
remains but one step more, to reign with Christ : have 
we not induction enough to conclude that the article 
will not be used, if the idea be that the Lord himself is 
spoken of. I^ow it is used. There is no authority 
of the least value for its omission, as Tiscliendorf 
and Grriesbach show. And even suppose the correct- 
ness of the MSS. might be denied (which would be a 
strange step, and a dangerous), there is another line of 
argument we might pursue. Except in chapter xi. 15, 
and xii. 10, where allusion is made to the second Psalm, 
and where we might translate thus, ^' the kingdom of 
our Lord and his anointed one," " the kingdom of our 
God and the power (or rights) of his Christ," showing 
that the Lord is not personally named, John nowhere 



56 PREMILLENNIALISM A DELUSION. 

in the Apocalypse uses the word " Christ'^ as the name 
of the Lord. " The Lamb/' the Lord Jesus Christ, the 
Lord Jesus, are the words he uses.* And when speak- 
ing of the Second Advent, he says, " Even so come 
Lord Jesus." Hence, we conclude, that John does 
not indicate the Lord Jesus Christ in this place, but 
that the word has the same meaning as in 1 Cor. 
xii. 12 ; Jer. xxxiii. 16 ; compare Gen. xxxiii. 20. 
Wherefore, founding our opinion on all these things, 
we suggest that the church is that which is meant in 
this place, for it is called '^ Christ" and " the body of 
Christ" in the New Testament. Compare o X^KTrog 
with vfj^sig iCTi (Tw^oca 'X^i6ro\) in 1 Cor. xii. 12, 27. So 
that there is a lovely harmony now seen to obtain 
throughout this whole book. The martyrs, in apoca- 
lyptic language, have all their sympathies with the church 
of the living Saviour, and are not looked upon as sepa- 
rated from it when — like Paul — they are 6vv X^k^to) in 
heaven. But even as their prayers and blood are re- 
presented as being still before the throne and in the 
church, so are they recognised as uniting (jjira rov 
X^/crou in triumph and praise during the thousand years 
of the first resurrection. They had the assurance when 

* This will do for my purpose. But if chapter xi. 15 be taken as 
the key to chap. xii. 10 and xx. 6, then the following might be 
drawn. The name for the Father in the Apocalypse is " the Lord 
God Almighty," that is Jehovah, and " God" (chap, xxi.) as ex- 
plained in 1 Cor. xv. 24, 28. Now the Hebrew language knows no 
such word as 'i3n-,ri^ even grammatically. We cannot say "our 
Jehovah." And, therefore, when we find the words " our Lord," 
they do not refer to the Father, but to the Redeemer. Now, what 
is implied by the phrase '' our Lord — (Saviour)— and his Christ?" 
Evidently, Jesus the Lord and his church. So that we believe it 
could be shown that the word " Christ" does not refer to any thing 
else than the church, in these places named. 



THE THEOLOGICAL AND BIBLICAL ARGUMENT. 57 

they died for the truth that they would "overcome by the 
blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony." 
And it is so. Even as in them the church — we — you 
and I — died amid the flames of persecution, so in the 
church they live and reign. In them, in these our 
noble warriors, we went against the enemy and died ; 
in us, in the Millennial Church, the noble army of 
martyrs triumph over all the enemies and appear on 
thrones. Does not this exhibit the blessed oneness 
of the church of all ages and of all countries, that the 
martyr Paul, who is now cuv X^/^rrw in heaven, is repre- 
sented as having all his sympathies /^sra rou X^k^tov on 
earth, joying in its joys, reigning in its triumph, as he 
sorrowed in its afflictions and died in its persecution? 
We do not say that Paul feels this in the intermediate 
state. In our fourth part we shall speak of that. But we 
say that the unity of the church is a metaphysical one, 
as well as a mystical one. We have Paul still among 
us. We have the martyrs still among us. Like Joseph's 
body, they form a part of the church caravan as it goes 
up through the wilderness. There is no separation in 
the body of Christ. However we shall go no more into 
the idea that is at present before our mind, as we shall 
have to return to it in the two last parts — an idea well 
nigh overwhelming in its grandeur, when clearly grasped. 
All we aim at now is, to find out the meaning of the 
word " Christ" in this verse ; and we are greatly mis- 
taken if it is not proved to be the church. And the 
visibility of the martyrs with the church is entirely a 
mystical and apocalyptic one ; for their souls are <fvv 
X^KTTu in heaven. 

The rest of the chapter constitutes simply a text to 
the first part of the essay ; and we do not think any 



58 PEEMILLEXXLU.ISM A DELUSIOX. 

one is prepared to give a more probable explanation of 
it than has been done there. And if our friends might 
wish more said upon the sixth verse, they are referred 
instead to 1 Peter ii. 1, 5, 10 ; and to the fact that a 
very different idea is contained in it from that of the 
fourth verse. 

Take next 1 Thess. iv. 16, 17. The proof which 
our friends draw from this place depends on the mean- 
ing they give to the words, " The dead in Christ shall 
rise first/'' Indeed, the starting point of the whole 
error seems to have its root here. It would seem as if 
the similarity of sounds in the '* rise first'*' of this place, 
and the ^' first resurrection'*' of Eevelation, hadledthem 
astray. And when one considers how easily a thought- 
less and somewhat superficial exegesis would apply to 
this place to clear the difiiculty in Rev. xx., it is not 
difficult to account for the theory that has been taken 
up. It is more difficult, however, to conceive how men 
could persist, in these days of sounder analysis, to prove 
the doctrine of two resurrections from these two verses ! 
To clear away the gloss, we may merely observe, that 
the apostle does not speak of the resurrection of the 
wicked in any place of this chapter. Save in its connec- 
tion with the one resurrection of which he speaks, and 
which he knew well embraced it, the subject is not be- 
fore his mind. There cannot therefore be any reference 
to them in the relative meaning which the word " first" 
conveys. And he does not draw a distinction between 
the martyrs and the rest of Grod's church ; they are not 
before his mind either. The two parties of which he 
speaks are the dead saints sv X^/crw who are ffvv ^Piffroj 
in heaven, and the living saints fv -rw Xpkjtoj who shall 
be on the earth at the time the Lord will appear tlie 



THE THEOLOGICAL AND BIBLICAL ARGUMENT, 59 

second time witliout sin unto salvation. The word 
^* first'' refers to the former, and " then" to the latter. 
And the two particles scrs/ra and a/xc6, when connected 
with " first/' express only a precedence of order not ad- 
mitting of any interval of time. They are simultaneous 
events like the ^^then" and the other things in 1 Cor. 
XV. 24. The sounding of the trumpet shall be followed 
instantaneously by these two things, the raising of the 
dead and the changing of the living. Xow, it is easy 
to see how this would comfort the Thessalonian Church 
for the present loss of departed saints, when they are 
told that the living shall not enter upon the glory pro- 
mised in the gospel till the dead are raised. Then all 
the saints — the dead raised, the living changed — are 
caught up to meet the Lord in the aii\ And the 
wicked — raised and changed — remain on the earth and 
are judged there. This is the general resurrection and 
the general judgment. 

We defer any inquiiy into the meaning of the writers 
of the Xew Testament, when they speak of the nearness 
of the Lord's coming, using very generally words in the 
present tense to indicate it, to the fourth part of the 
essay. But we cannot help saying, in passing, that 
we are surprised at the strange explanations which 
more trustworthy writers than Gibbon have ventured 
to put upon the apostle's words, ^'we who are alive 
and remain unto the comino- of the Lord." Stranofe 
that so many interpreters, several of whom we could 
name, should draw a meaning from these words so 
identical with that which Paul labours earnestly to 
counteract both in the second epistle and in 1 Cor. xv., 
where he speaks of the same event. The Thessalonians 
seem to have mistaken what he means in his fiist 



CO PREMILLENNIALISM A DELUSION. 

epistle to them, from the way m which he expressed 
himself. They seem not to have known the language 
which is instinctive to those who understand and realize 
the unity of the body of Christ. But we need have no 
difficulty with it. Certainly the multitude of foolish 
conjectures which have been cast up from some minds 
has created difficulties where no difficulty is. This 
church was anxious to know whether their dead friends 
were lost to them for ever. They are not, is the reply. 
Over those who have died in the faith God takes such 
care, that ere living believers shall enter upon the rest 
promised, the dead shall be raised, that the church of 
all ages — " the bride, the Lamb's wife" — may at once 
meet its Lord, and enter with him into the eternal 
glory. 

Take next Joel iii. The following things, together 
with the fifth part of the essay, will guide us to a cor- 
rect explanation of this chapter. 1. The preceding 
parts of the book, though speaking of a literal and his- 
torical circumstance, are figurative or poetic in their 
language ; therefore this also, unless clear proof be 
produced to show the contrary. 2. Either this chapter 
is figuratively descriptive of the gospel dispensation, or 
(if this be not granted) then it must describe matters 
which take place after the Millennium. For by compar- 
ing Isa. xix. 22, 25, where we are told Millennial bless- 
ing is to embrace Egypt, with the 19th verse of this 
chapter, where Egypt is excluded and pronounced a 
desolation, it will be manifest that the Millennial period 
is not the one pointed out. But the Apostle Peter, in 
quoting Joel, does so in such a way as to show that 
the state of things, during the ministration of the 
Spirit commencing with the day of Pentecost, is opened 



THE THEOLOGICAL AND BIBLICAL ARGUMENT. 61 

up. The chapter points to matters which take place 
from the rejection and dispersion of the Jews to their 
conversion and restoration. Now, this restoration takes 
place at the commencement of that time which lights 
up the prophetic eye with beauty and gladness. Then 
Egypt, which has been very much a desolation both 
spiritually and temporally from the time of Cy]3rian, or 
soon after, till this present hour, will be " the third with 
Israel" in the Lord's blessing. Will our friends accept 
of this ? Whether they do or not, they close with a 
dilemma which assuredly deprives them of another pas- 
sage. We believe, however, they will accept our rule 
of interpretation, after they have examined the fifth 
part, and that which we say on Zechariah xiv., to which 
we now come. 

Zechariah xiv. To enter fully into the investigation 
of this portion of the Word of Grod, would require more 
room than we are allowed. But we believe a few things 
will show its inapplicability to the purpose of proving 
the theory of premillennialism. 1. When certain rules 
of a general kind have been laid down, and which are 
evidently grounded upon the word, then no explanation 
of a passage which opposes these can be admitted as the 
true one : all texts of this kind should be explained 
according to the analogy of faith. Whether the views 
of our friends agree with that analogy, appears more and 
more clearly as we go along. 2. If Egypt is to be a 
sharer in the Millennial blessing, — and we suppose our 
friends believe that every nation under heaven shall be 
so, when " the earth is filled with the knowledge of the 
glory of the Lord,'' and " the kingdoms of this world 
are become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his 
Christ,"^--then all this chapter down to verses 20, 21, 



62 PREMILLENNIALISM A DELUSION. 

must indicate tlie state of things antecedent to that 
time. 

ISTotwithstanding the multiplicity of views which 
have been expressed by Jewish commentators, and by 
Christian, upon this book ; notwithstanding that Eabbi 
Salomo calls it " valde abstrusum vaticinium, '' and 
Jerome terms it " obscurissimum librum;'' notwith- 
standing that such names as Calvin, Grrotius, Dathe, 
Marckius, Lowth, Scott, Henderson, Clarke, Newcome, 
Henry, Blayney, J. H. Michaelis, the ancient fathers 
and the modern writers, are almost all at variance, be- 
sides many other commentators to which these refer.; 
we do not think we should at all despair of arriving at 
the mind of the Spirit of God in this chapter. Of 
course, we do not for a moment arrogate to ourselves 
the ability to walk securely where so many have failed, 
nor even to weigh accurately the probabilities in the 
various comments we have consulted. We are almost 
ashamed to venture forward to seek the meaning of this 
chapter, with such a list of mighty names rehearsed, 
for fear of what people may say of us. But our task 
is principally to show that premillennialism gets no 
countenance from it, and, while doing so, some things 
shall be stated to serve as landmarks to guide us 
through its intricacies. We believe that one may be 
able to arrive at a tolerably correct knowledge of our 
prophet's meaning by consulting the notes of Calvin, 
Marckius, and J. H. Michaelis ; and attending to such 
landmarks as these which follow : — The double mean- 
ing of prophecy, explained more fully in part fifth, or 
to take it as expressed by Michaelis, " Foster propheta 
passim a figura ad rem ipsam ascendit, i. e., ad veritatem 
et mysteria iSTovi Testamenti,'' so as to use the very 



THE THEOLOGICAL AND BIBLICAL AHaUMENT. 63 

words, and the same phrases, which apply to the Leviti- 
eal economy to describe the mystery of godliness which 
is opened up in the IsTew Testament. — The order of 
chapter xiv. is certainly posterior to chapters xii., xiii. 
But these describe the Lord's passion at Jerusalem, and 
the passing away of the peculiar dispensation which 
had been maintained among the Jews till that time. 
Wherefore the attack on the city, chap. xiv. 2, is cer- 
tainly in an order succeeding the death and ascension 
of our Lord, We therefore agree with our friends in 
this, and join issue with them only on this question, 
Do the matters contained in the most of this chapter 
pertain to the Millennial period wholly ; or do they 
belong to the whole period, extending from the Lord's 
ascension to the dawn of Millennial beauty — the beauty 
of holiness ? We maintain the latter, they the former. — 
The second verse describes the destruction of Jerusa- 
lem by the Eoman army. " Half of the city shall go 
into captivity ;" if city be taken for the country, which 
is probable, for there was more fighting than at Jeru- 
salem, and the well-known inscription is Judea capta, 
not Hierosolyma capta, then the half means the half of 
the survivors, and the rest of the people may be the 
other half of the survivors. It is not necessary to 
show the absurdity of Eabbinical boasts about the 
number of the inhabitants of Judea, nor to dissect the 
statements of Yillalpand. Xor is it necessary to ima- 
gine that the three parts into w^hich the inhabitants are 
here divided were precisely equal in point of numbers. 
It is unnecessary to the accuracy of prophetical expla- 
nation to say that a third j)art exactly was killed, that 
a third went into captivity, and that the other third is 
under God's continued dealings. Whatever may be the 



64 PREMILLENNIALISM A DELUSION. 

truth, in the family of Jacob from the time they began 
to be a people until their captivities and slaughter be 
at an end, it is quite enough for finding the meaning 
of this portion of Scripture to say that one part was 
killed, that another went into captivity, and that the 
third part is under the discipline of chapter xiii. 9, 
from that hour to this. Indeed, no one who under- 
stands the genius of the Hebrew language will once 
think that the statement is intended to convey an exact 
idea of numbers ; the words which explain the second 
verse are these, " in all the land two parts shall be cut 
off and die," literally or legally, by the sword or by 
captivity, " but the third shall be left therein," — " shall 
not be cut off from the city," " and I will bring the 
third part through the fire," &c. Thereafter Jerusalem 
is no more, its service passes away (John iv. 21, 24), 
and the language that has marked its history is now 
applied to the history of that of which it was the type, 
even to the Christian church : which history commences 
with the third verse. — For an explanation of verse third 
Ave may compare Isaiah x. 12, and consult Gibbon's 
Eoman History, Ferguson's Eoman Eepublic, Alison's 
History of Europe, and the present state of Eome's 
descendants. — Yerse 4, " His feet shall stand on the 
Mount of Olives ;" remembering what has been said on 
the meaning of the KotvMvia ibiMfj^arcfiv, a comparison of 
Exodus xix. 18, and xxiv. 10, 11, with Deut. iv. 12, 
V. 3-5, Isa. Ixiv. 1, and of the Apocalypse throughout, 
will show at once what is meant. There is no visible 
advent referred to here, for the place of the visible 
advent is " the air," 1 Thess. iv. 17, and the historical 
period referred to has witnessed no other descent of Je- 
hovah than an apocalyptic one. From which we see 



THE THEOLOaiCAL AND BIBLICAL ARGUMENT. €5 

no reason whatever why we should not accept the m- 
terpretation of the Targum, " He shall make hmiself 
manifest in his power/' — " On the Mount of Olives */" 
the same language is properly applied to that Jerusa- 
lem (Gal. iv. 26), which has taken the place of the city 
destroyed by the Eomans — destroyed all but " the 
third part.'' Papal Kome and the spiritual Jerusalem 
answer fitly to Pagan Rome and the literal Jerusalem ; 
and, if the name Jerusalem be mystically retained, 
there is good reason for keeping up such expressions as 
'' the Mount of Olives" in this verse. And, therefore, 
to a great extent are we inclined to accept the remarks 
of the judicious Marckius upon this verse and down- 
wards to the eleventh. He may be profitably consulted. 
As also Hutchison of Edinburgh, whose remarks on this 
chapter are as valuable as any thing he has written on 
the minor prophets. — From the beginning of the 12th 
verse to the 19th inclusive there is a parenthesis, 
partly broken in the 16th, but returned to in the three 
succeeding ones. So that the historical progression of 
the chapter will appear by passing over these. The 
construction of the scheme of the Apocalypse is an 
exact parallel to that of this chapter. If we regard 
the church, its history runs on from the 6th verse ; if 
we regard the enemy, its history will run on from the 
same verse ; the parenthesis being either the history of 
the church, or of the persecutor, . according to the idea 
most prominent before the mind. — Then, lastly, the 
progress of the gospel, verses 9, 10, 11, is carried into 
the millennial prosperity described in verses 20, 21, 
as is shown by J. H. Michaelis on verse 9. — 

There are now four particulars which will settle the 
question between our premillenarian friends arid u,s, 

E 



66 PREMILLENNIALISM A DELUSION. 

besides opening up more fully the meaning of a part of 
the chapter. That question is : Does this chapter carry 
us over a series of events from the destruction of Jeru- 
salem under Titus until the restoration of the Jews in 
the time of millennial blessing; or is it all fulfilled 
after their future restoration, and immediately before 
the Millennium ; or at the end of that period, and as 
parallel Avith Eev. xx. 7, 9 ? We maintain the first of 
these three ; and there are four particulars which de- 
monstrate the correctness of so doing. In the first 
place, there is the way in which the Lord is fighting 
with the nations which overthrew Jerusalem. " Their 
fiesh shall consume away while they stand upon their 
feet, their eyes shall consume away in their holes, and 
their tongue shall consume away in their mouth." This 
is not a punishment of individuals, for the word is 
-^•£y:^-ps^ — -LXX., 7ra))7ag rovg Xaovg; it applies to the 
difterent nations of the ^y^ which came against Jeru- 
salem. Wherefore it is a description of the decline and 
fall of the Eoman Empire. While Eome was yet 
" standing upon its feet," and the prestige of its name 
over all the earth, its strength decayed, its resources 
dried up, its " corpulency" wasted till it became a very 
skeleton. Together with this, its wisdom departed 
from it ; there was no one that could take the helm of 
state and steer it through the difficulties : its eyes had 
consumed away. And as the last sign of a nation's 
decay, its very language deteriorated till the tongue of 
Eome consumed away in its mouth and became a dead 
language. Now, besides the length of time which 
general principles show this must take, besides that 
history has shown how gradual is its progress, the 
whole order of the chapter will be broken if we do not 



THE THEOLOGICAL AXD BIBLICAL ARGUMENT. 67 

explain it as taking place while the li^dng waters are 
going forth from Jerusalem. It is while the Lord is 
standing on the Mount of Olives that both of them flow 
downwards through history. All tliis has been fulfilled. 
But like the Jerusalem that then was, the Jerusalem 
that has taken its place has enemies who have hitherto 
fought against her. Has not this plague followed 
them? And we have reason to expect it shall still do 
so with all those nations which persecute the church of 
Grod. This is the plague of the persecutor from the 
Lord. Xor can this be supposed to throw the Millen- 
nium indefinitely forward, for we believe a safe rule, 
and one every way philosophical, though it may appear 
trifling, is this, — that in proportion to the rapidity of 
all things now when compared with the past shall be 
that of the plague of these nations " which have fought 
against Jerusalem." Now, this wasting of the perse- 
cuting nations must take place before the Mllennium ; 
there is no other period that can, by any possibility, be 
assigned to it. 

In the second place, as there were intestine divisions, 
and discord, and treachery in Jerusalem while it was in 
a state of siege, so are there in the church while the per- 
secuting army is besieging it. Calvin draws this from 
the 13th verse. We are not quite sure of the propriety 
of this. We rather think it applies to the intestine 
wars by which the persecuting nations of the preceding- 
verse would waste away their flesh by fighting with 
each other. But we find the internal divisions of the 
church in the 14th verse. After we are told that ene- 
mies from without would fight against Jerusalem, it is 
added, " And even Judah shall fight against Jerusalem," 
{sic in the Hebrew.) For there are three sorts of 



68 PREMILLEXXLILISM A DELUSION. 

enemies with wliicli the cliureii lias to contend. These 
are the peoples ="'2i'" of the 12th verse ; there is Jiidah, 
or the treacherous ones, of the lith ; and there is the 
=r-"""5 '"■/j the army of all the heathen, viz., the gold, and 
the silver, and the apparel in great abundance. Jeru- 
salem's enemies are the persecutors without, the traitors 
within, and Mi30iox. For observe how this 14th verse 
reads in the Hebrew — '• And even Judah shall fight 
against Jerusalem ; and scraped together shaU be the army 
of all the gojim around (in the world), gold, and silver, 
and garments, in great abundance ;'*' meaning that gold, 
and silver, and silks, and cottons, collected from all 
parts of the world, shall be an army uniting with the 
others to distress and waste the church of God. Xow, 
when is it that Mammon has been ^' the sin of the 
Christian chau'ch ? *' "Where is it that it has united with 
the other destructive powers to ruin Christ's heritage ? 
Not durmg the ^Millennium, nor only immediately before 
it. Alas I the scene of Acts iv. 31:, 35, soon passed 
away from the midst of it ; and from the latter part of 
the second century tUl now. Mammon has been en- 
throned in every country of Christendom — in every 
branch of the church — in almost every congregation. 
And when is it that this church shall be disturbed from 
within, that those who are baptized and bear the Chris- 
tian name are the most successful in weakenhig its hands 
and discouraging its heart ? Do we not see the time 
and the thing, too, in the divisions of the Protestant 
churches ? Do we not see it in the way in which the 
body of Christ is even now lying wellnigh j^rostrate 
before the adversary, rent into a thousand pieces ? Yes. 
— If these things are to characterize the time after the 
Lord's Second Advent, alas for the truth of Scripture 



THE THEOLO&ICAL AXD BIBLICAL ARGrMEXT. 69 

promise ! Is it for sucli a state of things that Isaiah's 
prophetic eye glows with seraphic delight ? Is this 
what is meant by those burning words, " He shall see 
of the travail of his soul and be satisfied'' — ^' Thy 
people shall be all holy?" And yet all this finds its 
place between the time of the 4th yerse and that of 
the 20th, and only then. All this is to take place after 
the Lord's coming, if the 4th yerse contain that com- 
ing, as is the theory of our friends. 

In the third place, we liaye the peculiar case of 
Egypt. We should like to be able to enter fully into 
this part of the chapter, as it would greatly serve our 
purpose ; but the limits of a presbyterial essay forbid 
what would necessarily be very long. We shall there- 
fore merely refer to the remarks made upon it in the 
parallel place of Joel. To fulfil our task in dealing 
with premillennialism, it is quite enough to say that if 
Egypt is to be a sharer with Israel in the happy period 
to which we look forward ; and if famines and distresses 
of a spiritual, political, and temporal kind, are to mark 
its history previous to that ; and if the notice of it in 
this chapter presents us with its sterile condition — then 
the chapter speaks of a period which precedes the Mil- 
lennium. 

In the fourth place, there is that singular expression 
of the 21st verse, " There shall no more be the Canaanite 
in the house of the Lord." This does not mean that 
there shall no longer be a merchant in the Lord's house, 
though this would suit well with John ii. 14-16, and 
the trafiic which has been carried on in the service of 
Mamriion. ISTor does it refer to the command that 
"Ammonites," &c., should not be permitted to enter 
into the house of the Lord, for no nation or person is 



70 PREMILLENNIALISM A DELUSION. 

excluded from the grace of tlie New Testament. We 
believe the following remarks will be appropriate ; and 
it is on the strength of them we resist the tempting offer 
presented by translating it " merchant/' to support the 
observations made on the power of Mammon in weaken- 
ing the body of Christ. The apostle Paul, in Gal. iii. 
8 ; Eom. xv. 8, 13, 16, and many other places, refer- 
ring to the Abrahamic church, declares that it shall yet 
embrace all nations : " In thee shall all the nations of 
the earth be blessed." And again, specially connecting 
this with the seed of Abraham, " Not seeds as of many^ 
but as of one, in thy seed, which is Christ,'' he makes 
the very blessing which descended on the patriarch 
himself depend on him who should spring from him. 
He says, " Christ was the minister of the circumcision 
for the truth of God to confirm the promises made unto 
the fathers ; and also of the Gentiles, that they might 
glorify God for his mercy." This Abrahamic church, 
of which the Lord Jesus Christ is the prophet, priest, 
and king, is to embrace all nations, for the covenant 
under which it was constituted does so. In other 
words, all nations shall, by God's grace, embrace the 
gospel, and be brought into it through faith. This 
faith respects a gospel, for " God preached the gospel 
unto Abraham ;" and therefore this same gospel, which 
embraced him, is to be preached to all nations, so as to 
embrace them. Well, then, the commencement of this 
church is indicated thus : — A weak, wandering, witness- 
ing church, sojourning in a land that does not belong 
to it save by promise — seen in the actual circumstances 
of Abraham at the time, and the very significant ^state- 
ment, " The Canaanite was then in the land." Divest 
all this of the typical character and symbolic language, 



THE THEOLOGICAL AND BIBLICAL ARGUMENT. 71 

and what have we ? The church of Grod, constituted 
under promises which centred in Christ, placed in a 
world which is full of " Canaanites." It wanders up 
and down in it, lifting up a testimony for the Most High 
God, the possessor of heaven and earth ; and though 
weak, and small, and despised, at its beginning, and 
during the long dreary period of witness-bearing, still 
it has the promise of the world : "In thee and in thy 
seed shall all the nations of the world be blessed." 
And sometimes, like the patriarch, it shows its dignity, 
and grasps the sceptre, and is mighty even in the eyes of 
the Canaanites. We pass on through the lapse of ages ; 
we enter upon proj)hetic times ; we see nations born in 
a day; we hear anthems of praise swelling over every 
country, its music entering our wearied sjDirits, and 
even now reviving them, as if there dropped liquid 
odours from the wings of that holy dove which hovers 
over Messiah's church with the branch of peace to im- 
plant in each wounded heart ; at length we see the 
church of all nations "keeping the feast of tabernacles," 
not now as during its wilderness sojourn, when it had 
to show itself a pilgrim, but in the way described in 
Isaiah chapter xii. ; and as an indication that the gospel 
has accomplished the divine design, and that Abraham 
— the church that is — has got his own now, we are told 
in the closing voice of Zechariah, " There shall be no 
more the Canaanite in the house of the Lord." Why 
is this sentence put into this place with so little con- 
nection, as we might think, with that of which the 
prophet speaks ? Because he is declaring the ultimate 
triumph of the Abrahamic church. At the commence- 
ment of that church it is said, "The Canaanite was then 
in the land ;" at its completion in IMillennial triumph it 



72 PREMILLENXIALISM A DELUSION. 

is said, " There shall be no more the Canaanite in the 
house of the Lord." That which was ^'the land'' then, 
a dreary usurped land, without Grod and Christ, is now 
" the house of the Lord," and full of his glory. Docs 
not this shed light on the last chapter of this difficult 
book, and is not this expression placed there as a guid- 
j ing thread ? Does it not show that the leaven which 
was hid in one family extends to the world, and that 
the world is to be brought into covenant with God by 
the preaching of the gospel? And whether the re- 
marks made on this chapter be deemed satisfactory or 
no, we believe enough has been said to demonstrate 
that it gives at least no countenance to the premillen- 
nial theory, which is our chief design. 

The truth is, there is absolutely nothing in the Bible 
to support the idea of a visible advent of the Lord be- 
fore the Millennium. We are aware of the many other 
passages to which our friends appeal. Two classes of 
them which constitute really a difficulty, — they say to 
us, we shall prove it is to them, — shall be examined 
in the fourth part. And, incidentally, notice shall be 
taken of the others, such as Matt. xxiv. and some places 
in Isaiah. But to these we need not now give special 
attention. It would occupy too much space ; and, we 
are confident, a conjunct view of all that shall be in 
this essay will show it to be a work of supererogation, 
save as comments upon Holy Scripture. Already is it 
very manifest how unsolid is the basis on which our 
friends have placed their system. Already we would 
liope is the strong title of our essay justified. But we 
have more to say. 

1. It has already been stated that the gospel is given 
bv Clod for the conversion of all nations. But the 



THE THEOLOGICAL AXD BIBLICAL ARGUZvIEXT. 73 

gospel is the ministration of tlie Spirit, and this minis- 
tration is during the Lord's absence. — (John xvi. 7.) 
The time of his absence and the continuance of this 
ministration is till the world be convinced, verse 8. 
But conviction by the Spirit is in order to conversion 
and salvation. Any other kind of comdction is either 
exhibited in despair or in hell, and certainly is not the 
work of the Holy Spirit. This might be illustrated in 
another way. Faith is called in the Scripture '' the 
faith of God's elect ;" that is, all the elect shall be saved 
by faith alone. When the election is exhausted, when 
there is no other elect soul to be born, then the world 
shall be at an end, for it is preserved only for the sake 
of the election. But this faith is the operation of God 
the Spirit, and therefore he will continue his peculiar 
work till the election be completed. And faith embraces 
an absent, not a present Lord ; therefore the Lord comes 
not till the Spirit's work be at a close — therefore it is 
expedient for the church that the Lord should not be 
visible in the midst of it till the number of the elect be 
fulfilled ; for if he were not absent, we should not have 
the presence of the Paraclete ; and if we had not this 
presence, we should have no faith ; and if we had no 
faith, we should have no salvation ; and if no salvation, 
what would the Lord's presence be ? Amos v. 18, 19, 
20, will supply the answer. Now, this agrees precisely 
with the relation of the persons of the Holy Trinity to 
the work of redemption ; and one of the most i3rofitable 
inquiries, as well as the most sweeping confutation of 
the theory we are examining, will be found in the na- 
ture of the Trinity, and the relation borne to redeem- 
ing work by each divine Person. It is a pity more dee23 
thought is not given to this subject. In the economy 



74 PREMILLENNIALISM A DELUSION. 

of redemption, the Father elects, the Son redeems, the 
Spirit draws. The Son reveals the Father, who is not 
known but in the Son. The Spirit reveals the Son our 
Lord, who is not known as the Christ of Grod save in 
the Holy Ghost. Now, the elected of the Father, the 
purchased of the Son, and the regenerated of the Sj^irit, 
are one number of individuals. If we view these indi- 
viduals with the idea of election before the mind, then 
our minds necessarily terminate on the act of the Father, 
that is, on the Father ; if we view nothing but redemp- 
tion, strictly so called, it terminates on the Son ; and if 
we view nothing but renovation, it terminates on the 
Spirit alone. In the work of satisfaction, atonement, 
righteousness, no other Person of the Grodhead steps in 
but the Son ; in that of renovation, the application of 
the Son's work to all whom it respected, no other per- 
son steps in but the Spirit. There would be a discord 
in the harmony of the Grodhead if there did ; for the 
same order obtains in the personal operations as does 
in the personal subsistences in the Trinity. And while 
that is an order developed without the element of time 
on God's part, on the part of man the only way in which 
it can be understood is by the idea of a succession of 
time, events, results. Persons. If the Lord take the 
place of the Spirit before the election be all saved, the 
order of Persons is destroyed ; or if the Lord were to 
appear in the field of renovation in company with the 
Spirit, there would be exhibited an act which finds no 
place in any other of the personal operations which flow 
from the Triune Jehovah. Yet not on this account is 
the Father or the Son away from the church, or unen- 
gaged in the work of regeneration, for the Father in 
the Son by the Spirit doth work ; for when the Spirit 



THE THEOLOGICAL AXD BIBLICAL ARGrMEXT. 75 

worketh, God doth work, the divine essence being om- 
nipotently active in the person of the Spirit — for Spiri- 
tus Dei nihil aliud est quam Deus Spiritus. All which 
agrees with such passages as 1 Cor. xv. 25 ; Acts iii. 
21 ; and Heb. x. 12, 13, where Jesus Christ is repre- 
sented as going into the heavens, having received them 
as a kingdom, — (Ov o?/ ovpavov /jav h^a^Qai^ Who must re- 
ceive the heavens, until, &c. ; the same Greek construc- 
tion you will find in 2 Tim. ii. 6), — imtil the Holy 
Ghost shall have put all things under him, and prepared 
this world, in its baptism of fire, to be a fit place for the 
Lord and his glorified church to dwell in. Which bap- 
tism cannot take place tiU every elect soul shall have 
been baptized; for the " creation" is waiting till then, 
(Komans xm. 17-25) ; and the one laver of regenera- 
tion must be a world's sacrament before that world can 
be washed in fire. This line of argument might also be 
dra^Ti from the formula— the Father creates, the Son 
redeems, the Spirit regenerates. 

2. If the Spu^it in his pecuKar ministry is only needed 
during the Lord's absence, so are the word and sacra- 
ments. Li fact, the one implies the other ; but we shall 
also attend to this particular on its own merits. If any 
one should feel inclined to dispute this proposition as 
regards the word, it cannot be done as regards the 
sacraments ; for the substance of the sacrament is Jesus 
Christ not seen by the bodily eye, nor cognizant to the 
bodily senses, as it is. But the sacraments cannot exist 
without the word of promise which they seal, just as 
we cannot suppose the word to be given without sacra- 
ments, if a complete revelation from God to creatures 
with a sensational nature be intended. It is nothing 
to the purpose to speak of the sacraments in the life of 



76 PREMILLEXXLILISM A DELL'SIOX. 

Christ, for tliey required to be instituted ; and no truth 
can be pLainer to one yrho knows their meaning than 
this, that they cease as soon as he who is the substance 
of them appears. The '4nward spiritual grace" of 
them is nothing else than that seal of the Holy Ghost 
which brings the Lord to us and us to him in a spiritual 
communion, by means of suitable ordinances ; so that 
even the necessity for this inward spiritual grace, so far 
as it exhibits the life of faith, shall cease when the Lord 
comes again. Sacraments, in the visible and invisible 
use and effects of them, shall cease, and also the word 
which always accomj^anies them, or rather which they 
always accompany, as soon as the Lord appears. Xow, 
the continuance of these is indicated when Jesus said, 
" Do this in remembrance of me till I come." — (See 
also 1 Cor. xi.) Here it is intimated, in the first place, 
that the sacrament shall cease when the Lord comes, and 
not till then ; and, secondly, that the two sacraments are 
coeval, which throws us u^^on Matthew xx^dii. 18-20, 
to obtain a distinct reply to the question, Allien is this 
coming to take place, and the word and sacraments be 
needed no more ? The answer is, TMien '^ all nations" 
are discipled, baptized, and taught. And lest there 
should be any mistake, it is added, " Lo, I am with you 
always unto the end of the world," showing that the 
ministry of word, and sacrament, and prayer, shall con- 
tinue to the end of the world. Wherefore the end of 
the world shall not take place hefore all nations are bap- 
tized into Jesus Christ, although some strange explana- 
tions of this phrase have been given by men who wrest 
the Scriptures, calHng it *• the end of the age or dis- 
pensation." Suppose it were the end of the age, and 
not the end of all things, what would our friends gain 



THE THEOLOG-IC.IL AXD BIBLICAL ARGUMENT. 7 < 

by it ? All nations are to be baptized into Christ 
(which is the true idea of the JMillennium) before it 
take place — that is, baptism is to be exhausted before 
it ; but as long as there is a ^isible chui^h, it shall have 
the \isible sacraments, and therefore when the sacra- 
ments are at an end, the visible church is at a close. 
But wlien the visible church is at a close, the kingdom 
of glory begins, time is no more, eternity rolls on. 
Strange that, for the sake of a theory, such a translation 
as this should be adopted ! "\Miat will they gain by it ? 
Suj^pose it took place a thousand or a hundred thousand 
years before time be at a close, it is distinctly stated in 
God's Word that the Lord does not come till the end of 
all things (an '- all things'"' which of course includes 
time and death, <S:c.), and therefore by then- own postu- 
late are they deprived of the visible presence of the 
Saviour during the JMillennium. And, again, how in- 
consistent is this with a passage of their own. Matt. 
xx^i. 30, 31. Does nottliis place seem to say that the 
end of all things is meant by any term you please which 
is associated with the Second Advent ? ^Vliat says it ? 
^Mien the number of the elect is ready to be gathered 
and delivered up to the Father, Christ will come, the 
trumpet shall sound, and all tribes of the earth shall 
mourn. If, however, the conversion of the world were 
to succeed or immediately precede the Advent, what 
reason woidd there be for this mourning ? It is not a 
godly sarroic that prompts it, but the anguish of despair. 
It is not the idea of hatred and warring against the 
Lord and his saints surely that is conveyed in this wail- 
ing. But we need not pursue this. Clear it is that 
the sounding of the trumpet shall be followed with the 
resurrection of mvriads who shall have bitter cause to 



78 PREMILLEXXIALISM A DELUSION. 

join their Trailing with the miserable apostates who dwell 
on the earth at the time. And then time and death shall 
be no more. But both these are to continue during the 
Millennium, as we shall now see. 

3. " The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death." 
Now, the destruction or counteraction of death can be 
no other than resurrection, and a ceasing to die after- 
wards. It is vain to confine the idea to the cessation 
of mortality, for so long as a dead body remained in the 
earth, death would not be destroyed. But the Lord 
sits at the right hand of the Father till the last enemy 
be destroyed. He does so till all his enemies be made 
liis footstool ; and death is the last to be so. Does the 
sitting at the Father's right hand mean a thing which 
may consist with visible presence on the earth, as they 
say intercession may ? Is this phrase used in the Xew 
Testament only to express a state of honour, and not a 
locality — a locality, we mean, somewhere else than on 
earth ? Nay, it is opposed to visibility. TVliatever it 
be, and wherever it be, it continues the same as now 
till death be destroyed, for the apostle says he is loait- 
hig till all his enemies be made his footstool. Wliatever 
time he may come, we are in plain words told it will 
not be till death is destroyed. And no one who under- 
stands the meaning of words can hold that it is destroyed 
so long as multitudes are in their graves. "When death 
is destroyed, destroyed out of God's world, there is 
nothing but life. It is therefore at the time of the re- 
surrection that the Lord comes. And it has already, 
yea it is now proved, that there can only be one resur- 
rection. And when this takes place, time shall be no 
more, — (Rev. xxi. 4) ; for this mortal shall put on immor- 
tality, death be swallowed up in life, and God be all in 



THE THEOLOGICAX AXD BIBLICAL AEGUMEXT. 79 

all. This is the state of things when our Lord comes 
again. But will any of our friends say that no deaths 
shall take place during the jSIillennium ? Whj, then, 
that passage Isaiah Ixv. 20 ? Life shall be longer 
then; people, perhaps, may not die in infancy, but still 
they shall die. And will there be no time then ? "Why 
speak of a hundred years old then ? "Wlierefore there 
cannot be a clearer syllogism than this : — The Lord 
comes not -s-isibly to this earth till death be destroyed ; 
but there shall be death during the Millennium, there- 
fore he comes not till after it. 

Thus, then, we conclude that, — as the reproving of 
the world, the subjugation of all nations under Christ, 
and the first resurrection (to be explained immediately), 
are the work of the Spirit, and as he works while the 
Lord is absent, — the Second Advent will not take place 
till after the Millennium. The fact of a universal 
church, ha^dng the characteristics described in Isaiah 
and others of the prophets, being in the world, and that 
in such a way as that the church and the world shall 
be correlative terms, is e^ident from Psalms ii., ex., xlv., 
xMi., Ixxii., &c. ; and Acts iii. 21 ; 1 Cor. xv. 24, 25 ; 
Zech. xiv. ; Daniel ii. 34, 35 ; and multitudes of other 
texts. There will still be " tares " or h^-j^ocrites in the 
church, for this arises from the heart of man ; but there 
shall be no Canaanites in the Lord's house, for this 
arises fi^om the power of the wicked one, and he is 
bound. The simple fact that the Canaanites were not 
in the chiu'ch, and the tares were, shows that they are 
not identical. There wiU be tares as long as original 
sin remains — that is, as long as the human race descends 
from Adam by ordinary generation ; but the Canaanite 
shall cease, for the old serpent that deceived the na- 



80 PREMILLEXXIALISM A DELUSIOX. 

tions and carried tlie T^'orld into the cliurcli shall be 
bound. 

We mentioned that there are many incidental proofs 
scattered over the sacred page Trhich appear filled with 
light when viewed in connection with other arguments. 
We shall present a few out of the many wliicli any one 
may gather in the course of reading the Scriptures. 1. 
In Paul's Epistle to the PhiKppians he says, " Grod hath 
highly exalteth Christ Jesus, and given him a name 
which is above every name : that at the name of Jesus 
ever}' knee should bow, . . . ... and every tongue 

confess that he is Lord, to the glory of Grod the Father.'"' 
In reading this we instinctively inquire. How is it to be 
brought about ? In Hebrews x. 13, we are told that 
this man, — the humanity specially pointed out, — is 
waiting at the right hand of the Majesty on high until 
this great result be effected. It is not yet accomplished, 
but it will be ; and therefore the Lord will continue 
where he now is until then, — that is, until after it ; for 
from the time of sitting down at God's right hand till the 
subjugation of all things, there is no intimation of any 
change of position, ^"^lierefore homage is rendered to 
'*'the name" of an invisible person. And the apostle 
gives the Pliilippian church three means by which, un- 
der Grod, who worketh both to will and to do, the name 
of Jesus may be thus exalted : — Their advancement in 
personal holiness ; their blameless conduct in the world ; 
and their positive activity in shining as lights (win- 
dows — the word, however, is used by the LXX. in 
Genesis i. 16) in the world, holding forth the word of 
life. — (See chapter ii. 12-16.) Alas ! instead of this, 
most Christians " seek then' own, not the things which 
are Jesus Christ's." 2. It used to be a favourite theme 



THE THEOLOGICAL AND BIBLICAL ARGUMENT. 81 

with some to dwell on the evidences of the Lord's re- 
surrection ; and they found always a deal of difficulty 
in getting the question settled, Why did not the Lord 
appear to his enemies, so as to confound their lies, and 
prove to all that he was indeed risen from the dead? 
Various answers were given, some of them satisfactory 
enough. We shall supply another. If our Lord had 
permitted his enemies to look upon him, it would have 
been a renewing of his humiliation. It was a part of 
that estate of humiliation which the Saviour of mankind 
had to undergo, that ungodly and unbelieving men were 
able to look at him. With his abode in the grave that 
humiliation is gone for ever, and his enemies have never 
seen him since (compare Acts ix. 7), nor shall they till they 
see him as their Judge. Indeed, so marked is this thing, 
that even Ids oicn could not look upon him, nor see him, 
during the forty days he abode on the earth after his 
resurrection, save by a direct act of his will. ^Ylien they 
saw him, we are told of it always in such words as these, 
"He showed himself unto them,'' "He appeared to them," 
"He was seen of them," " He was made known to them.'' 
Suppose, then, the glorious One were to appear on earth 
now, or at any time before the changing of those who 
are ahve, and the resurrection of the dead, ungodly 
men could look at him. Even though we might sup- 
pose the " Canaanites" driven out of the land, and sent 
to the place prepared for them, still there would be 
tares in the church (Matt. xiii. 30, else it is the glori- 
fied church), and they would see him — they would look 
on him — they might converse with him ; all which would 
throw us back to his state of humiliation again. The 
world never can be in such circumstances as that the 
Lord could appear, and the ungodly see him, save at 



82 PREMILLENNIALISM A DELUSION. 

that time when it shall be in flames^ and the living be 
"changed" — when "the wicked shall be turned into 
hellj and all the nations that forget God." 3. When the 
Lord appeared to John in Patmos as the great King, 
how are the stately steps of his power, by which he 
goeth forth to take possession of the world as its lawful 
sovereign, characterized or exhibited ? By the seven 
stars in his right hand, and the two-edged sword pro- 
ceeding from his mouth — that is, by the gospel ministry 
and the Holy Scriptures. (Compare Heb. iv. 12 and 
Rev. xix. 11-16.) In other words, the universal Head- 
ship of the Lord Jesus is to be made known in all the 
earth by the gospel ministry. 4. When he appeared to 
John in such a glorious way, as one like unto the Son 
of Man, he who had stood gazing up into heaven with 
a breaking heart when his Master was leaving him, 
would instinctively desire to ask questions about him- 
self — where he was — when he would return ; in short, 
his attention would naturally be all turned upon the 
Lord. He is not, however, allowed to do so : " It is ex- 
pedient for you that I go away." Another work lies 
before John and the body of ministers than to gaze up 
to heaven, or to rest in satisfied delight in personal in- 
tercourse with the Eedeemer, or to turn monk; and his 
attention is at once and wholly turned to the church, 
and away from the immediate view of his Lord, — an 
example to all ministers so long as the church needs 
our attention, which it will do to the end of time. 5. 
Paul directs the minds of ministers to this very thing ; 
for when urging Timothy (2d Epist. iv. 1, 2) to faith- 
fulness and diligence in preaching the Word, he charges 
him before Grod and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall 
judge the quick and dead at his appearing and his king- 



THE THEOLOGICAL AXD BIBLICAL ARG-rMEXT. bo 

dom ; as mucli as to say, that while the ministerial work 
is needed, the Lord's s-/pavs/a shall not take place. We 
might point out and enlarge the following things : — 
That the close of preaching is at the appearing of the 
Lord — ^that the appearing of the Lord is at the com- 
mencement of his kingdom — that this kingdom is not 
the triumph of grace, but the eternal kingdom of glory 
— that the judgment of the cpiick and the dead (^wvrac 
xa/ \>sxi>ovg = the whole humanity, for this is its force 
without the article) shall take place when the Lord ap- 
pears; but we have not time to enlarge. "We shall only 
say, that the number of these incidental proofs might be 
srreatly enlarged. We do not sav they would of them- 
selves be conclusive against premillennialism, but Ave do 
think they constitute a corroborative evidence when 
viewed in connection with the other matters which have 
been adduced. And, therefore, in placing before you 
this whole line of argument, and commending it to a 
careful attention, is it without sufficient reason we 
close it up with the judgment pronounced by the Synod 
of London in 1552, before the death of the sixth Edward, 
and placed among the standards of the English church : 
— " Qui millenariorum fabulam revocare conantui', sacris 
Uteris adversantur, et in Judaica delii-amenta sese pre- 
cipitant ? '' And although the Westminster Assembly did 
not formally pronounce upon it, is there any minister so 
unacquainted with the writings of these great men, as 
not to know that Cxeorge Gillespie speaks out the ^-iew 
of most of them on this subject, when he says — "' These 
new lights are not new. They are not lights, because 
not according to the Word of God ; nor new, because 
the very same things have been before moved and main- 
tained. Antinomianism, Anabaptism. universal atone- 



bi PREMILLENNIALISM A DELUSION. 

ment by the death of Christ, universal salvation, a 
temporal and earthly kingdom of Christ, &c., have been 
maintained, and confuted also, before this age?" And as 
if to show the feeling of the universal church, and to 
prove that the idea has been considered unscriptural, it 
is isrnored bv all the creeds. 



THE FIRST RESURRECTIOX. 85 



PART III. 

THE FIRST RESURRECTIOX. 

We stated that an explanation of this subject would be 
given. AMiile it does not properly present itself as an 
argument to either side — for it is a good rule to bring 
forward nothing in support of a position, the meaning 
of which is disputed — it will still throw much light upon 
the preceding argument. And it is quite necessary to 
seek some explanation of it, lest any one should imagine 
the unity of the scheme, which shall be presented in 
this essay, to be broken by the ideas which convention- 
ally are attached to the phrase, " the first resurrection/' 
Much stress has been laid upon its meaning by our 
Mends ; not indeed upon its true meaning, — that they 
have entirely missed, — but upon that which, by an empty 
exegesis, they have been accustomed to assign to it. 
We do not speak thoughtlessly or arrogantly when we 
say this. Our position, in opposing the views of many 
godly men, is far too solemn a one to admit of any such 
thing. We shall endeavour, by a calm and sober ana- 
lysis, to see how far our friends are justified in drawing 
for the support of their system upon this subject, pre- 
sented in the twentieth chapter of the Apocalypse. We 
are not afraid of the result. The precise question to 



86 PREMILLEXXIALIS^kl A DELUSION. 

keep before our miiids is this, Wl)at is the meaning of 
the words, '^ This is the first resurrection, blessed and 
holy is he who hath part in the first resurrection •/' and 
do they give any countenance to the idea that all the 
saints, or only the martyrs, shall be raised from the dead 
at the commencement of the ISlillennium ? In order that 
a clear path may be open before us when specially 
speaking of the point at issue, a few notes of exposition 
are necessary. 

That promise, under which the dispensation of mercy 
began, runs thus : " I will put enmity between thee and 
the woman, and between thy seed and her seed ; he 
shall bruise thy head, and thou slialt bruise his heel.'*' 
We are glad to find that Andrew Fuller agrees with us 
in making a distinction between the crushing of the ser- 
pent's head and the crushing of Satan himself. Eoberts, 
in liis " Mysterie and Marrow of the Bible,''' seems to 
do the same, and other eminent authors whom we need 
not particularize. In that nature which the Son of 
Grod assumed into union with himself, and wliich was so 
far beneath him as to be properly designated his heel, 
or that by which he marks his " goings" upon this world 
of ours, the serpent crushed him. And in that nature 
which the devil assumed when tempting Eve, and wliich 
was so far above himself as to be rightly termed his 
head (Milton has excellently wrought out the idea), 
even that assumed character in which he has deceived 
the world and the church from that day to this, will the 
seed of the woman crush him. There will be no assumed 
character — no mask — no show of spirituality — no form 
of an angel of light, in the great Caesarianism of the end. 
The nauie of serpent shall have ceased then; and the 
deceivei' of the nations is Satan the devil, in his own 



THE FIRST RESURRECTION. 87 

base, black character. If then the Bible mark the his- 
tory and progress of this dispensation of grace and love, 
it will carefully point out these two cardinal points, the 
bruising of the heel and the bruising of the head. It 
will do so both as to the general meaning of the word 
seed, and its special ; that is, both the bruising of the 
Son of Man and of his church wiU be marked out, and 
that of the old serpent and his followers. It does so 
in language singularly precise. "^Miat were the words 
made use of by the serpent's seed when the heel of 
Christ was bruised, and he descended into the depths 
of the earth (into the earth's abyss ^'^^^\'^) ? They called 
him " the deceiver ;" and having got him into the 
" grave's abyss," they rolled a large stone upon it, and 
" shut him up, and set a seal upon him," that he might 
not deceive the people any more. (Matt, xx^ii. 63-66.) 
They dared to use such language of, and do such things 
to, the Son of God ; they presumed to think they had 
got him into the abyss and could keep him there. But 
it was only the heel that was bruised. The Lord lay 
down on his peaceful bed for a little till it recovered, 
and then, by the Spirit of holiness, he burst asunder the 
bands of death and opened the kingdom of heaven to 
all believers. But let us pass on to the bruising of the 
serpent's head, and how is it marked ? (Eev. xx. 2, 3.) 
Wellnigh in similar language to that which describes 
his conduct to the Lord of glory. He is cast into the 
abyss, — an expression different from that in verse 10, and 
used (by no chance coincidence) with a distinct reference 
to a grave. The same word is used, in Romans x. 7, in 
speaking of the Lord's state of death, and resurrection 
from the grave. And the Hebrew scholar knows how 
closelv interwoven is the idea of a ^-rave with sucli 



«« PREMILLENXIALISM A DELUSION. 

words as Sheol, the depths of the earth, i='"^, &c. Where- 
fore this place of the Apocah^se marks the bruising of 
the serpent's head, and the descent of Him who has the 
keys of hades and of death to cast the serpent into its 
grave. " Say not in thy heart who shall descend into 
the abyss, that is, to bring up Christ again from the 
dead," for he is not there ; he hath risen and left an 
empty grave for the reception of the old man. By faith, 
his people cast their body of sin and of death into it; 
and he is coining down to seize the old serpent himself, 
and throw him into that grave headlong, and to roll a 
great stone upon him to shut him up, and to set a seal 
upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, 
till, &c. This place marks, then, the bruising of the 
serpent's head. And if so, the consequences will follow, 
— only of an opposite kind, — as followed on the bruis- 
ing of the heel of Christ. As then the serpent and his 
seed had it all their own way, so now the seed of the 
woman — Christ and his people — have it all in the way 
the martyrs have prayed and suffered for. As, then, 
Satan had his short-lived triumph in Ms memhers, so now 
Christ the Lord will have the millennial triumph in his 
members — that is, in the church. According to the 
promises — according to the method of the divine govern- 
ment — according to the law of compensation, there 
must be a state of things, after the bruising of the ser- 
pent's head, corresponding to what there was after the 
heel of Christ was bruised. And this on the outside of 
Eden; for the j)romise of Genesis iii. 15 belongs to the 
woman and her seed out of paradise, and not in it, nor 
restored to it. As Christ and his church had to descend 
into the abyss of the grave under the crushing which 
the serpent has been permitted to accomplish, so must 



THE FIRST RESURRECTIOX. 89 

the serpent and liis seed descend into tlie abyss under 
the crushmg which the seed of the woman will effect. 
And all this takes place in the world. 

It is only visibly that the seed of the woman goes into 
the grave ; invisibly it " ascends unto G-od and his 
throne.'*' "Wlierefore visibly, too, shall the serpent and 
his seed be thrust down into the abyss, — that is, it is 
not the future punishment which is referred to, but the 
present existence which is taken away. AVe know what 
the eternal lot of Antichrist ian persecutors is, but it is 
not referred to here. The cause and kingdom of the 
prmce of this world shall die the death, and be thrust 
down into Christ's empty grave, and the stone be rolled 
upon the mouth cf it, and the seal of Grod make it 
siu^e. And there it lies, unable to come forth again until 
Grod please. And he keeps it there for the thousand 
years, " and after that he must be loosed a little sea- 
son." 

Xow, as the death and burial of the seed of the woman 
takes place dm^ing the supremacy of the usurping prince, 
the death and burial of the serpent and his seed will 
take place during the supremacy of the world's lawful 
king. And therefore the life of the church and the 
death of the world will correspond to the death of the 
church and the life of the world. But the world lives 
noio, and the church dies — the world is triumphing, and 
the church is crushed. In other words, Christ's cause 
is at a low ebb, and that of the serpent prosperous. 
But it is not meet that the bands of death should hold 
it ; God will raise it up again. This is the first resur- 
rection. The church shall arise from its present death, 
and the world descend from its present life. The 
church shall live, the world shall die. The resurrection 



90 PREMILLENNIALISM A DELUSION. 

of tlie woman's seed takes place, and the burial of the 
old serpent and his hrood. 

We have already explained the fourth verse in part. 
One matter of it only remains. Is the word " souls" 
used for persons, as it often is in all languages ? The 
construction is rag ^'i^^ot^ t-wv TgvrsXsx/tr/xgvwv. Now, it 
might form a very nice inquiry whether it refer to per- 
sons or souls. There can be no doubt but the genitive 
is often used instead of the adjective of concord; as 
the people of holiness, for the holy people ; the soul of 
life, for the living soul ; and we remember several ex- 
amples of this, both in Grreek and in Latin. At the 
same time, we do not think this construction occurs 
either in the Hebrew or Greek Bible or Testament. 
Romans ii. 9, 1 Peter iii. 20, and, both in Hebrew and 
Greek, Ezekiel xviii. 20, Genesis xlvi. 26, Exodus xii. 
lo, would show that if persons were meant in Eev. vi. 
9 and xx. 4, the construction would have been rctg 
-^'jy^ag rag ^%iti\i%i6iJ.ivoLg^ which is confirmed by 
chai3ter xviii. 13, where souls of men certainly mean 
souls and not persons. So that if we attend to the 
construction only, we would at once conclude that souls, 
in the strict meaning of the word, are meant. 

And, again, the question might be put. Does it not 
stand for dead bodies ? Does it not mean, " I saw the 
bodies of those that had been slain, and they lived and 
reigned with Christ?" In Hebrew and Greek, and 
(Augustine tells us it is so) in Latin, the words '^"^^^ 
•^vx^}, anima, are used to signify a dead body. It 
might be replied that the word is so used in Hebrew as 
that it ca:mot be mistaken, as in Leviticus xxi. 11, 
Numbers vi. 6, and ix. 6, 7, seeing that it is accom- 
panied by ^?. as a participle in one case, which is both 



THE FIRST RESURRECTION, 91 

masculine and feminine in its gender, and therefore 
feminine here ; and in the other by o;^ ^^ ^^ adjeetivial 
noun — a nephesh Adam being a most appropriate name 
for that periphrasis, " Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt 
thou return." And it might also be shown that, " The 
blood is the life thereof, '' is an expression which would 
account for two or three more of the passages, by mak- 
ing them mean blood. This, however, would leave 
Leviticus xxi. 1, Numbers v. 2, and Haggai ii. 13, to be 
accounted for, which can be done no otherwise than 
Maimonides has it, when he says that this word signified 
the body after the departure of the soul. And our 
translators, and Ains worth and Bush, have followed 
him. But of course our friends will never think of 
calling it bodies here ; for besides the strange contrast 
it would present to have bodies pointed out in this 
way, it would not in the least advantage their theory, 
since it is an apocalyptic sight of them, as in chapter vi. 
9, and because the one resurrection has already been 
proved. We are not aware that any of them, have ever 
asked us to translate it as we do Leviticus xxi. 1. We 
may be mistaken, but we have not met with it in any of 
their books we have consulted. We have no doubt w^hat- 
ever that souls are literally referred to, both on account 
of the peculiar construction, and also because it can be 
demonstrated that the martyrs are not to be raised from 
the dead during the Millennium. But they are referred 
to in such a way as to imply personality, for " the rest of 
the dead," referring to the Antichristian army, is used 
in a personal way, and the two are in contrast. There is 
no difficulty in demolishing the premillenarian meaning 
of the word ; but this gives no satisfaction, unless we 
can really discover what it does mean. And we think 



92 PREMILLEXNLVLISM A DELUSION. 

that which suits the great idea of this book is the one 
we have already given, viz., that the martyrs are still 
viewed as a part of the church, that we can feel as if 
we were in their company, and that this shall be much 
more realized during the Millennium, when the mem- 
bers of the Church shall know more clearly what great 
things they owe to the martyrs, and be more thankful 
for that which has been transmitted to them with tears, 
and blood, and prayers, and death, than they now are. 
In the fifth and sixth verses there is a hysteron p^o- 
teron, as is often the case in the sacred ^vritings. The 
logical place for the words, " The rest of the dead lived 
not again till the thousand years were finished," is be- 
tween the sixth and seventh verses. But why stands 
it where it is ? By no error whatever in the MSS., but 
in strict conformity with the philosophy of the associa- 
tion of ideas, We appeal to all who have made them- 
selves intimate with the style of Scripture, whether 
they would not a priori expect these words to stand where 
they do, and yet logically to belong to the commence- 
ment of the seventh verse. In verses 2-4, the Millen- 
nium or first resurrection has been revealed. It con- 
sists of life ; it consists also of death. Both the life and 
the death are before the apostle's ^iew, as making up the 
one thing he speaks of; and before he can speak of this 
first resurrection, or declare its blessedness, the crush- 
ing of the serpent's head must be declared. But for the 
sake of analysis, how are we to gather it up ? Certainly 
by classifying the first resurrection and its predicates, 
and then uniting the first part of the fifth verse with the 
seventh, so as to perceive how the rowing of the rest 
of the dead and the loosing of Satan refer to one and the 
same thing. Hence the first resurrection is the life of the 



THE FIRST RESL'ERECTIOX. 93 

seed of the Tvoman — the Head and the members — after 
being bruised in the heel ; and the li^ing of the rest of 
the dead is the re\dval of the seed of the serpent — 
the Devil and his professed followers — after the bruising 
of its head, which, however, is not called a resurrec- 
tion, but only " a loosing out of prison for a little time." 
We are now prepared for a clear and direct statement 
of what is here meant, at least we shall be so, as soon 
as this exposition of the relative meaning of the word 
^' first'' to something else than ^* the rest of the dead," 
is confirmed upon doctrinal groimds; and also in its re- 
lation to the resurrection of saints or wicked at the last 
day. We grant in the most cordial manner that it has 
no reference to the loosing of Satan and the revi%ing 
of his cause in the world, for that is not called a resur- 
rection — that is not the second resurrection. The 
word resurrection cannot be appKed to a thing of death, 
and which runs on into the second death. We grant 
this most cordially. We maintain it. But we also 
hold that it bears no relative meaning to the rest of the 
dead, as if that remainder meant either dead saints or 
dead wicked, lying in their graves till some future 
period. Is any one still inclined, after all that has 
been said, to affirm that some shall be raised from their 
graves before others, and that this is the meanino- of 
the first resurrection ? Then, notwithstanding that it 
is almost superfluous to write more, to show the base- 
lessness of such a theory, we may again approach it with 
a most important historical fact. Suppose it meant a rela- 
tive rising of parties in the way they maintain ; — In 1 
Cor. XV. 23-26, we aretold of two resurrections; thejirsty 
that of the Lord Jesus ; the second, that of all who are 
his at his coming — the coming, namely, of 2 Tim. iv. 1, 



94 PREMILLENNIALISM A DELUSION. 

wliich synchronizes with " the end, when he shall have 
delivered up the kingdom to Grod, even the Father ; 
having put down all rule and authority and power/' 
and which is in order " to judge quick and dead." If 
the apocalyptic first resurrection is to be explained ac- 
cording to the scheme of our friends, then it becomes a 
general Scripture doctrine ; and the only general doc- 
trine on this subject is that of Acts xxvi. 23, and the 
place of Corinthians referred to. So that, by all fair 
reasoning, it is the Lord's resurrection that must be 
meant, for the apostle distinctly makes this statement. 
!N"or will that incident, Matthew xxvii. 52, 53, oppose 
this any more than the raising of Lazarus or of the 
young man at Nain, though it would give difficulty to 
the system of our friends. Wlierefore there can be no- 
thing clearer than this, that if there be a doctrine of 
the Word of Grod declaring that there are two resurrec- 
tions in the history of the church — these being a re- 
surrection of parties — we must search that Word for a 
distinct mention of these parties. And the only parties 
to which any reference whatever is made are of such a 
kind and so express, as to require at once the application 
of the first resurrection to our Lord, and of the second 
to all who are his at his coming. This is a doctrine — 
this is a truth — this is one of the most important doc- 
trines of the Holy Scriptures. But a single glance at 
this chapter of the Apocalypse suffices to show that our 
Lord's resurrection mentioned by the evangelists is 
not the special object of the apostle's vision. What 
then is it ? If this be not the meaning of the vision, 
nor of this expression, what is ? 

There is a double resurrection — the first and the second 
— in the case of each redeemed sinner, in the case of a re- 



THE FIRST RESURRECTIOX. 95 

deemed church, and in the case of a redeemed world, as 
there was in the case of the Lord Jesus Christ the Head. 
It has already been said that the counteraction of death 
is no other than resurrection. AMiat, then, is the death 
which in redeemino- work has to be counteracted ? It 
is the death of the soul and also of the body. And what 
mean these deaths ? The separation of a spiritual being 
from Him who is its life, and of the animal being from 
that which is the principle of its life. The restitution 
of animal life — the reunition of the soul and body — does 
not imply a spiritual existence any more than the pre- 
sent union of them does ; and therefore the resurrec- 
tion of the body is not a deliverance from the second 
death. But the restitution of spiritual life places a 
man in such a position, as that the second death has no 
power over him. So that to the mcked, raised as they 
shall be at the last day, there is still the second or eter- 
nal death. It is not so with believers ; when they are 
raised from spiritual death, they have, in the Holy 
Ghost, who quickens them, a seal of their physical 
anastasis, and of their eternal glory and deliverance 
from the second death. Here, then, we find the mean- 
ing of the first resurrection. If it be not that oi parties, 
it is that of parts ; if it be not the re^dval of dead 
persons, it is that of their spiritual existence in the uni- 
versal diffusion of the principles which breathed through 
their own spirits a heavenly vitality. In a word, the 
first resurrection is that of the Soul. It is the coun- 
teraction of the soul's separation from God. It is the 
quickening from spiritual death, which in order must 
precede that of the body. The Apocalypse speaks not 
of individuals but of the church, it speaks not of a man 
but of a world of men. And therefore the first resur- 



96 PREMILLENNIALISM A DELUSION. 

rection which it particularizes must refer to the church 
and the church's world ; but the nature of it must be 
gathered from what it is in the individual, and espe- 
cially from what it was in the Head. Let us trace it 
in the different parties. 

1. The first and second resurrection of the Lord 
Jesus Christ — Our Lord's humanity was a true body 
and a reasonable soul. Lito that humanity guilt was 
taken by a real transfer, so as that the effects of sin 
were really there. When our Eedeemer died, it was 
not in phantasm; and when he groaned in agony of 
soul, it was not a well-sustained dissimulation. There 
was sin there, not in act but in imputation ; the effects 
of that sin were there, not in imputation, but in fact. 
All the sin was there by transfer, and all the misery 
and death accompanied it. And even as it issued in 
the death of the body, so did it effect the death of the 
soul. The soul of the Redeemer was separated from 
God, and shut up amid the terrors and torments which 
are inseparable from sin ; not by an abode in Sheol, for 
" To-day shalt thou be with me in Paradise," shows that 
his intermediate state was not one of misery. That 
article of the creed (inserted to counteract the Apolli- 
narian heresy), " He descended into hell," by no means 
indicates that the separation of the soul of Christ from 
the light of God took place when it was where other 
souls are. No. Hell rushed into his holy soul before 
he died, not in its pollutions, but in its agonies. We 
are used to think and speak of the Lord's death, and 
the mind terminates not in the act upon the soul of 
Christ but his body. It is right a veil should be drawn 
over his soul's death, even as darkness enveloped his 
drooping body. But it is not right that the spiritually- 



THE FIRST RESURRECTIOX. 97 

minded should keep away from meditation on the 
spiritual death of the Lord — ^his sensible separation 
from liis Father's love — to contemplate merely physical 
sufferings. The soul of the Lord died within him. And 
when did that death of his soul take place ? Was not 
its dying agony seen in Gethsemane ? " My soul is 
exceeding sorrowful, even unto death." And was not 
the death itself seen during those three hours, marked 
with universal darkness — marked with the burning tears 
of angels and of the universal redeemed church ? — was 
it not when, in the anguish of grief and death, he — thy 
Kedeemer, believer — cried out ^'Eloi, Eloi, lama sa- 
bachthani ?" Let the silence of heaven and earth hang 
over these three hours, that believers may weep with 
their Lord. And when the light dawned upon his 
soul again (Ps. xxii.), and ere his head sank upon the 
breast of death, did not his fii^st resurrection take place ? 
— a resurrection wherein his soul burst into a life it 
never knew before. And when, after the resurrection, 
in which he burst asunder the bands of death, he re- 
mained on the earth for forty days, did lie not exhibit 
the nature of that life which those enjoy over whom 
the second death shall have no power, — not that life 
which believers have in heaven, but that sjjiritual exist- 
ence they enjoy here, which is, or ought to be, as inde- 
pendent of carnal obstructions as the Lord's body was 
of physical? Li all which he is the prototokos from 
the dead, taking the order of precedence, as is most 
due. ''He is the head of the body, the church, who 
is the beginning, the first-born from the dead ; that in 
all he may have the pre-eminence." 

2. Wliy should it be thought a strange thing that there 
should be this double resurrection in the case of each 

G 



98 PREMILLEXXIALISM A DELUSION. 

elect person ? There is tlie death of the soul as well as 
of the body ; and could words be used with more pre- 
cision than in calling the counteraction of this a resur- 
rection ? Were there not the fact of this first resurrec- 
tion in the history of the redeemed sinner, he would 
be under the power of the second death for ever ; and 
it is not possible that a spiritual person should have 
any part of him always holden by death : there shall 
be also a resurrection of his body. All this flows from 
that intimate union which subsists between him and 
his Lord. That which is true in the Head is so in the 
members. We are baptized into it. In our Head we 
die, not only objectively, by faith, but efficaciously, by 
one Spirit. In our risen Head we live, not only in 
law but in newness of life. By the voice of his Spii'it 
we live in soul now, as we shall in the last day by the 
voice of the King. Sin having been put away by the 
sacrifice of the body of Christ — in the Head by act, in 
the members by faith — a body united by one Spuit, 
the Father draws the whole body into communion with 
himself; each one in his order. Throw away the ele- 
ment of time and the idea of succession which attach 
to our state here, and what have we ? The whole body 
— the Head and members — descending into one grave, 
and rising in the one resurrection of soul and body. 
Wliy should the incident of time affect our calculations, 
words, or feelings ? Jesus is risen : I am risen. From 
my soul are shaken off the bands and weeds of corrup- 
tion — my sins ; and from the body are shaken off" in 
him, and shall yet be in me, the weeds of corruption I 
carry with me to the grave, and the bonds which keep 
me there. 

3. There is also a first resurrection in the history of 



THE FIRST RESURRECTION. 99 

the visible cliurch, as well as the second referred to in 
1 Thessalonians iv. And as the church is a visible 
corporation, its first resurrection as well as its second 
is both in a corporate and visible way. We could sup- 
pose the first revival of the individual to be hid — to be 
unknown to his fellows ; but such a thing finds no 
place in the church. We are now approaching the 
apocalyptic vision. In this book two armies are de- 
scribed, that of Christ and that of Antichrist. Tlie 
one is the church and its Head ; the other is the dragon, 
that old serpent the devil, and his followers, who arise 
in the place where Christ is revealed — that is, in Chris- 
tendom, In chapter sixth, we have a glimpse of the 
progress of the war in the slain souls under the altar; 
and in the eleventh, we have the issue in the church's 
death. Like its Lord, it is thrust down out of sight ; 
the heel of the woman's seed is bruised. But we have 
the death of another party mentioned in the nineteenth, 
even that of Antichrist; and, immediately after, the 
thrusting of the old serpent down into the pit, the 
serpent's head is bruised. Sudden and abrupt is the 
opening of the millennial vision, if we regard only the 
twentieth chapter. But let us return a little, and con- 
nect chap. xi. 11, 12, and 13, &c., with the xix., 
which speaks of the same events, and we shall see that 
the XX. does not open without due preparation. Dur- 
ing the three days and a-half of the xi. chapter, 
there is great joy among the serpent's seed. But the 
days expire, and the church rises into a new existence ; 
and the same hour the enemy perishes by intestine 
discord. In the midst of the tumult, heaven is opened, 
and the cry goes forth, " Babylon is fallen." Anti- 
christ dies and the church lives. That which had been 



100 PREMILLEXXIALISM A DELUSION. 

the world's death dies, and that which shall be its life 
lives. This is the first resurrection of the church. 
Endued with a new existence, and impelled by new 
alFeetion, it goes forth as the army of Him who sitteth 
on the white horse to subdue the world to G-od. And 
her condition and appearance are described in the xix. 
chapter, which states no more than may be said of 
every saint (verse 8.) But the world and the church 
are to be coextensive terms during the jMillenniiun, for 
the field in which Christ's treasure is placed is the 
world ; and, therefore, it is in the re^'ived church's 
taking possession of the whole earth that we have the 
precise idea conveyed by the words, '' This is the first 
resurrection.'*' It will be seen that more than the jDre- 
ceding verses of this chapter is referred to, for the 
XX. chapter is a continuation of the xix. ^Ylierefore, 
the revival of the church from the death of the xi. 
chapter, the fall of Antichrist, the binding of Satan, 
and the glorious campaign of the " Word of God" and 
his army, resulting in the subjugation of the world, con- 
stitute together that commencement of the ^lillennium 
called '' the first resurrection." The church's death 
is counteracted, and in a sj^iritual triumph of a thousand 
years is seen its new existence. — (Isaiah xxv. 7, 8.) 

4. But the death of the church was one of pressure 
under the enemy ; it was not a separation from God. 
Let us, however, ^'iew the world at the time the wit- 
nesses are slain, and the enemy vaunting. It is in a 
state of universal death of soul, so far as visibility is 
concerned. It is without a spiritual existence. The 
church, whatever be its members or condition, is near 
to God ; but the world in which it is placed, is far from 
him. If we take the cluirch as the bodv of the faith- 



THE FIRST RESURRECTIOX. 



101 



ful, then it cannot have this resurrection, except in 
individuals ; and it is only for the sake of illustration 
and proof that reference has been made to the preced- 
ing matters at all. The 4th to 6th verses of the xx. 
chapter of Eevelation follow the slaying of the wit- 
nesses, when the church and the world mean the same 
thing in an evil way. And it is in the calling back 
to G-od of that dead thing, by the Spirit of all grace, 
and in the manner described in chapters xi., xix., xx., 
that we find the millennium or first resurrection. 
The world is like an elect person lying in death ; but 
when the time appointed comes, it is irresistibly called 
into a new existence — a life purer than that of the re- 
newed soul now, for Satan is bound — a life indicated 
when it is compared to that of the martyrs, to whom. 
in a spiritual sense, Satan was bound, for " they over- 
came him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word 
of their testimony." A life, however, not so pure as 
that of chaptei's xxi., xxii., and not without tares, even 
as a martyr's heart is not without them. The church is 
near to God ; but the world in which it is placed is 
not — it lies in death. The usurper trys to keep it there 
by the ministry of Antichrist, and thinks he has suc- 
ceeded when he kills the church, as he did the Lord of 
glory. But he shall have his head bruised in the act — 
in the very act ; for even as " God raised up the 
prince of life, having loosed the bands of death,'' so 
will he raise up the church again, as it is " not possible 
that he should be hoi den of it." God will raise her 
up again, that, by its ministry, the world may be 
brought back to himself, and the first resurrection be 
accomplished. Long has been the conflict ; many a 
warrior— the noble army of martyrs— has fallen in the 



102 PREMILLEXXIALIS^I A DELUSIOX. 

contest ; the very cliurch lias died (Eev. xi. 7, 8), that 
out of its ashes a new existence may animate the 
world. But the swelling sound of the silver trumpet 
echoes through heaven at last ; and even as the trumpet 
of the archangel shall startle into life the inhabitants of 
the tomb— the universal death — so shall that of the 
G-ospel awake into the first resurrection the world of 
dead souls. The soul of the world, which is in a state 
of dreary apostasy and separation from Grod, shall yet 
be brought back to Jehovah, ^yith. its high intellect, 
noble will, and tender sensibilities. For in the time 
that the church lives and reio'ns. all that is £reat in 

r. . . . 

* intellect, and noble in character, and wonderful in dis- 
covery, shall be in it, and of it. May we call this the 
soul of the world ; may we unite into one the multi- 
tude of minds with which the world teems : may we 
view as a totality the universal mind of the world, and 
say, this soul of the world lies in spiritual death? 
Then, in the sanctification of this mind to God and his 
Christ, with all of mighty enterprise it has accomplished, 
and will yet do, we discover the world's first resurrec- 
tion. This is the first resurrection of the Apocalypse. 
'' Blessed and holy is he that hath part'' in it. And 
does there remain a second ? As the Millennium is to 
exhibit a holy world in the resurrection of its soul, is 
there a period still more future when itself shall be 
holy, in its material renovation, to be the abode of the 
Lord and his church for ever ? The body of the Lord 
Jesus was raised ; the body of every believer shall be 
raised ; the bodies of the wicked shall be raised : is 
the second resurrection confined to the dust of these 
bodies (we do not mean that the Lord's body saw cor- 
ruption) ? Even though we had no direct statements of 



THE FIRST RESURRECTION. 103 

the Word declaring that the very earth is groaning 
under the bondage of being a grave, and is heaving 
in throes to be delivered from the corruption which 
that implies, reason itself would tell us that the destruc- 
tion of death's gloomy chaos, in which each body of 
Adam's race is lifted into its proper position, will take 
place in the cleansing away of that one mass of corrup- 
tion which is spread over the earth's surface. That mass 
of decayed matter which burdens the earth's surface 
shall be washed away. The dust of man shall be raised 
up, and the dust of animals, and trees, and plants, and 
rubbish, shall be burned up. For even as my baptism 
signed and sealed my rising from the bed of death, even 
as it symbolized the baptism of fire, yea, as there was a 
sacramental unity between my baptism, my first resur- 
rection and my second, so as that the totality consists 
of the three, having abstractly no reference to succes- 
sion or to intervals of time, — so with the world's bap- 
tism. When it emerged from the waves of the deluge, 
and shook the sparkling spray from its mighty locks, it 
was signed and sealed as the dwelling-place of the 
church visible, in the universal extension of which its 
first resurrection should take place ; and it had likewise 
the earnest of that fiery baptism, in emerging from 
which into its second resurrection it shall be fitted to 
be the abode of the glorified church, with King Jesus 
in the midst of it to all eternity. 



104 PREMILLEXXIALISM A DELUSION. 



PAET lY. 



DIFFICULTIES EXA^^IIXED. 



In the preceding parts, proof of various kinds lias been 
\ led to arrive at a proper verdict upon the claims of the 
f Premillennial Advent. We have found that it is unsolid 
and unscriptural. Having confined our aim very much 
to one point, the incidental matters and explanations 
are necessarily treated briefly, and in one or two in- 
stances, perhaps, somewhat obscurely. Our present 
purpose is not either to lengthen these or to amplify 
the details. The main idea has been j)rominently 
enough held before the reader's mind ; and whatever 
come of any other matter, a decision on that is what is 
sought. We hasten now to notice the principal diffi- 
culties with which the view we have defended is said 
to be beset. These are partly dogmatic and partly 
textual. The textual difficulties have been mostly 
disposed of, when explanation was given of the leading 
passages produced by our friends in support of their 
system. And there remain but three particulars to be 
taken up in this part : — 

1. We are often pressed with the following question : 
If a time of millennial peace is certainly to precede the 



DIFFICULTIES EX.\^IIXED. 105 

Second Advent, and if the length of that period be 
so distinctly marked as that at least it will continue for 
a thousand years, how are we to explain the fact that 
we are constantly called upon to watch for the Lord's 
coming, to expect that it will be sudden, and that it 
may be at any moment, and that we must be in a state 
of daily preparation for it ? In regard to this matter 
we change ground with our premillenarian friends, and 
shall brino* their own charge to bear uTesistiblv as^ainst 
their own system. And to make the case somewhat 
clearer and none the less strong, let it be observed 
that wherever the Lord speaks of his Second Advent, 
he uses a verb in the present tense. When it is re- 
ferred to by creatures, as in Acts i. 11, 2 Peter iii. 10, 
the verb is not in the present; but whensoever the 
Lord speaks of it himself, it is so, as in the seven epistles 
to the churches of Lesser Asia. Xo words could be used 
to brmg us closer to that great event than we find 
there. Allien reading them, we feel as if heaven were 
to open in a moment, and the glorious One to burst 
upon our view. We have not met with a satisfactory 
explanation of this. "We are obHged to our friends for 
keeping attention so much fixed upon it. We are not 
sure that they have been satisfactorily met upon this 
point. We will make the attempt. May the gracious 
Spirit give light ! 

They say to us : if you are to throw the Lord's second 
coming indefinitely forward, you interfere with all those 
injunctions given in the Word, and lead men to careless- 
ness and sloth. And they remind us of the parable of 
that wicked and slothful servant who said in his heart that 
his Lord was delaymg his coming, and therefore began to 
act disorderly. They tell us of the proneness of men to 



106 PREMILLENNIALISM A DELUSION. 

grow careless and remiss, and that every doctrine should 
be held prominently before their view which is calcu- 
lated to counteract such natural and dangerous declen- 
sion. And then we are assured that the doctrine of the 
premillennial advent is fitted to rouse men from this 
sleep, yea, that from its suitableness to disturb careless 
ones, it exhibits an internal evidence of its being scrip- 
tural. The history of the church is appealed to as 
proving that the prominency given to this doctrine 
constitutes an index to the spiritual life and activity of 
professing Christians. And many other such things 
are we told. In reply to all this, we too affirm these 
things — these very things, and yet throw back this very 
accusation against premillennialism, every way assured 
we can make it good. We have no wish to rake in the 
dust-heaps to bring to light the delusions, and worse, in 
whose company this theory has not seldom been found. 
We have no wish to call church history to give the tes- 
timony it is well competent to do, not only to show 
what sort of company this theory has kept, but to show 
that it occupies the place in many of the delusions 
which not a few criminals have assigned to Sabbath- 
breaking in their career. But we call not history to 
prove whether it be as they say. We agree with our 
friends as to the place the Second Advent, and the doc- 
trines which are entwined around it, should occupy, and 
has occupied, in the spiritual life of the church ; only, 
we fear it is a grave error to postulate this of their 
peculiar views of that advent. We too affirm, that no 
doctrine is more likely to arouse men than that of the 
Lord's second coming : only, we maintain they have 
missed the true solution of the difficulty which attaches 
to the declarations of its suddenness, when they ex- 



DIFFICULTIES EXAMINED. 107 

plain them on the theory which they have adopted. 
Ah-eady many of theu' positions have fallen to the 
ground^ and the present is as likely to do so as the 
others. 

If our system militate so much against the watchful- 
ness of Christians^ if this principle cannot well be kept 
alive in the soul save upon their scheme of interpreta- 
tion, then observe the consequences. Paul either knew 
that the Second Advent was not to take place for many 
hundred years after the time he lived, or he did not 
know it. If he did not know, then why those anxious 
exhortations to the Thessalonian church to attend to 
their business, and not to suppose that the last day 
(for this is it) was at hand ? They seem to have acted 
as some modern parties have done — left their work to 
stand gazing up for the sign of the Son of Man in heaven. 
The whole fabric of society seems to have been loosened, 
and a general terror and amazement to have seized 
hold of them. This ceased, however, as soon as they 
received the apostle's second epistle, and every thing 
went on properly as before. Nor do we find that any 
of the churches were troubled about the matter after- 
wards. These two epistles, if not the first, were the 
second which the apostle wrote. We know from 2 
Peter iii. 16 that the Pauline epistles were spread over 
all the churches before the year 66, with the exception 
of the second to Timothy, which was only written that 
year. These two to the Thessalonians were therefore 
in many hands. If the first was mistaken by a church 
which stands at the head of all the others, how much 
more so by others ; and yet no necessity appears to 
have been felt for obviating similar mistakes in the 
other epistles. It is true, we have not every thing so 



108 PREMILLENNIALISM A DELUSION. 

clearly and so minutely stated as we might wish. But 
for any thing we know, the Thessalonians were satisfied 
that the day of the Lord (the day rov Kvoiov, not X^/(rroLi 
— Tischendorf) was not at hand. Indeed, we know 
they were. Tertullian tells the persecuting authorities 
in his apology, that the Christians by no means could 
be accounted traitors to the empire. So far from this, 
so far from desiring the downfal of the state, he tells 
them they had the greatest reason to pray for its peace 
and establishment. For not only were they commanded 
to seek the good of the country where they dwelt, but 
especially so of the Roman empire, seeing it was the 
great obstacle in the way of the apostasy rising in the 
church. And where did he find this ? In the second 
epistle to the Thessalonian church. True, that epistle 
says nothing of the Roman state and its overthrow, in 
so many words. It would have been unsafe for the 
church had it done so. But we cannot explain the effect 
of that epistle, and the way in which Tertullian refers 
to it, on any other idea than that the apostle had told 
them, when present with them (see 2 Epis. ii. o, 15), many 
things which they had forgotten under the mistaken 
views they took of some expressions in the first epistle, 
or that, b}^ the m^essenger who carried the second epistle, 
a distinct explanation of the second chapter was ver- 
bally conveyed. And from them spread abroad, or per- 
haps from Paul's personal conversations spread abroad, 
the general persuasion of the church that the Roman 
empire would fall ; but that for a length of time it 
would be preserved, to stand in the way of the Papal 
apostasy rising up in the church. That empire was 
then the world. In the ordinary course of events, it 
could not be got out of the way, so as to allow the 



DIFFICULTIES EXA^IIXED. 109 

apostasy to work into existence, for many years. Paul 
knew this. He taught this to the anxious church. 
And yet it is he who writes these words, '* The day of 
the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night.'' And to 
him, as well as to the church of his time and to us, was 
tliis warning voice, " What I say unto you, I say unto all, 
watch." Truly, Paul was not ignorant that the Second 
Advent was far in the future. He knew it both from 
revelation and from his accurate perception of the philo- 
sophical question of development, — a question which im- 
plies that the principles of the apostasy could not assume 
a body save as they rolled into existence through a long 
course of ages. And when speaking of the Lord's com- 
ing, he has this before his mind, and says, " That day 
shall not come until there be a falling away first." We 
need not stop to show how exactly history has confirmed 
his words. 

We are aware, too, that John the apostle (who had 
all the writings of Old and Xew Testaments in his 
hand) knew how distant the Second Advent was. Wlie- 
ther he could understand the .number of the beast him- 
self or no, whether he had the key to his apocalyptic 
years or not, one thing is certain — he knew they ex- 
tended into a vast future. Apart altogether from the 
numbers of years mentioned ; the incidents which were 
to occur, the nations and kings which were to arise, 
the principles which were to develop themselves, and 
the extension of the apocalyptic vision, all gave to 
his mind a clear and firm persuasion that the Lord's 
coming was far distant, at the very time that he felt 
how desirable it was, and urged believers to be watch- 
ing for it, and to be hasting to it with prayers and 
mighty deeds. And he opens up his own longings in 



110 PRE^^riLLEXNIALISM A DELUSION, 

those words, " Even so, come quickly, Lord Jesus. 
Amen." 

And whatever we may suppose the conviction in the 
minds of apostles and of the church to have been — 
though the mistaken view which continued to be taken 
by many in the church, of those words which the Lord 
said to Peter concerning John (John xxi 22), speaks 
volumes as to the general belief of the futurity which 
that coming implied — the Holy Ghost knew how dis- 
tant from those times was the advent ; and in the very 
book — the vade-mecum of Christ's church — in which 
he urges to a steady watchfulness, we are supplied 
with periods and years which he intended we should 
search into and understand ; periods which make mani- 
fest to Paul, or John, or Polycarp, that they would 
sleep with their fathers long before the Second Advent 
should be an event in the church's history. 

l^ow, we reason thus. It is not fair to urge an oppo- 
site system with a difficulty which weighs more heavily 
upon the party's own, or to make use of it without 
attempting aught else than the most limited application, 
when its very terms are of the most general kind. 
This command to watch for our Lord's coming, was as 
obligatory on the primitive church as on us. " Wliat 
I say unto you, I say unto all, watch." Yet this 
church gathered from the insph^ed record (even Tertul- 
lian, who held the views of our friends, tells us so) 
that the event referred to would not take place in their 
time. Was the doctrine of the Lord's coming a useless 
one to them ? Was the church of the first century on 
that account an unwatchful church ? We can prove that 
Paul, and John, and the brethren of those days, were 
holy and watchful. We can prove that this watchful- 



DIFFICULTIES EXAMINED. Ill 

ness was in connection with this doctrine, though not 
in the way our friends explain it. How could they, on 
their principles, explain the fact that John, James, 
Peter, Paul, gave heed to the warning voice, and 
watched for the coming of their Lord, as we see from 
their writings, and yet that they kneio the advent was 
far in the future ? 

We are confining our argument to the first century, 
because we know distinctly what the state of the church 
was then, and what were the opinions held by its mini- 
sters, and, with the exception of a few Judaizing sects, by 
all its members. We might take the whole of the past 
history of Christianity, we might take the first eighteen 
centuries, and without any reference to the opinions 
which have been held by some, may reason in this 
way. The Divine Spirit cannot place a fallacious mo- 
tive before the church of Christ ; he places before it, 
as a reason for watchfulness, such passages as these, 
" Watch, for you know not what hour your Lord doth 
come •/' but he knew that, from the year in which these 
words were uttered until the year 1851, the Lord 
would not be in the world in the way our friends ex- 
plain these passages : therefore, the meaning they give 
them is not the true one — therefore they have missed 
the mind of the Spirit in them. It is in this way we 
are to view the question. We grant that Justin Mar- 
tyr, Irenseus, Tertullian, and many more, held what 
our friends call " the personal reign,'' and that they 
placed this in the thousand years of the first resurrec- 
tion. We grant that this was a very common belief in 
the second century. But what of that ? Will it prove 
that it is the mind of the Spirit, any more than the 
fact that many good men in 1851 believe it, will show 



112 PREMILLEXXIALISM A DELUSIOX. 

it to be that Spirit's mind '? But more tlian that, we 
can show that, though Justin Martyr, and some others, 
held many of the peeuHar views of premill enniahsm, 
they did not hold this one, that it might take place in 
their days. Perhaps our friends may call it one of the 
many contradictions which are to he found in the writ- 
ings of the most of the fathers, that they held premil- 
lennialism and yet did not expect it to conmience in 
their days. It may be so. But still it is the case that 
Tertullian and others have written such things as to 
show they did not expect the advent for many, many 
years after their time. But we need not pm^sue this. 
It is enough for our present argmnent to take the first 
century, and to say — in order that we may no more 
hear of this sad charge, which has been too unceremo- 
niously thrown upon our system — that if the daily 
expectation of this advent be the only meaning of that 
motive presented to the church to stir it up, it was not 
placed before the primitive church ; and, therefore, if 
these injunctions be a difficulty to our system noiOy it 
was so much more to the premillenarian system tJmi. 

But more than that. If our friends be correct in 
their explanation of these verses, and if the principal 
motive for watchfulness and activity be contained in 
them (and we shall presently show that this is the case), 
then, instead of the result which our friends desiderate, 
the very reverse will follow. It was not a healthy con- 
dition that the Thessalonian church was in after the 
time they received their first epistle till the second 
reached them ; but if the idea of our friends had 
possessed them after that second arrived, and they un- 
derstood how far distant the advent was from their 
time, they would have fallen into a more unhealthy 



DIFFICULTIES EXA^^IIXED. 113 

state still. The fact is, this theory succeeds most 
thoroughly in making the primitive church believe 
that they have nothing to do with the command which 
the Lord addressed to " all." But this injunction to 
watch daily for the Lord's coming is equally to them as 
to us, is equally to us as to them : it is to the chiu-ch of 
all the Xew Testament dispensation ; and, therefore, 
to premillennialism belongs of right this heavy accu- 
sation, that it tends to make people like the slothful 
and wicked servant. Leave out of view the opinions 
which were erroneously cherished by some of the emi- 
nent men of the early church — we say erroneously, we 
are now entitled to do so — and take the Christian body 
while the Roman empire is still standing and entire. 
On it rests this injunction of the Master equally as on 
the church of these days. But the believers know 
well that the second advent will not take place till 
long after their days ; for, in the nature of things, 
principles are long in evolving the system to which 
they belong ; and the apostasy was not then formed. 
Have they then no reason for watchfulness? If they have, 
and that from these very verses on which our friends 
love to dwell ; and, if that reason be not the premil- 
lennial one, then to what does the charge come which 
we are examining ? 

We shall now show the meaning of the injunctions of 
which we have been speaking, and illustrate their prin- 
ciples. It might be done by showing that one very 
essential idea attaching to the church is that of person- 
ality. It is viewed in its unity very much as an indi- 
vidual is, and is very often spoken to in that capacity. 
We could construct a satisfactory enough argument 
upon that premise. It would leave us with some difh- 

H 



114: PREMILLENNIALISM A DELUSION. 

culties, and require us to show how the fitting-in of 
many details could be effected. But we have another 
design before our mind ; we desire to show how this 
matter may be brought to bear on each individuars 
conscience, as there can be no doubt the Lord intended 
it should. And now to our task. 

Many an injunction is laid on the church of the Old 
Testament to prepare for death. So much is this the 
case, as that '' all their lifetime they were subject to 
bondage through fear of death.*' Death bears the most 
dreary aspect to them. It is painted in the most sombre 
colours. Its whole aspect is exhibited as terrible and 
forbidding ; and this though many could look upon it 
as a bed (Isa. hdi. 2), and lie down upon it in peace, 
expecting by faith a happy resurrection. Tlie motive 
presented to the Old Testament church, to effect the 
result we have been speaking of in the last few pages, 
was founded on the doctrine of the sudden, the unex- 
pected, the sure approach of death. They are called to 
be watching for it, and to be ready to go every day. 
We have no s^nnpathy with the figment of a Limbus 
Patrum, or the equally improper conjectures of many a 
rationalistic Protestant ; we know that the godly en- 
tered into ^'Abraham's bosom" as soon as they died, 
and that Abraham's bosom was separate from hades 
(Luke xvi. 23), and was just the Jewish phrase for the 
state of glory. Still, from the nature of that dispen- 
sation under which they lived, we would have concluded 
that their minds would, in this way, be du^ected to 
death, as the incentive to a holy activity and watchfid- 
iiess. The more one thinks of death, and the matters 
which must necessarily be \dewed in connection with 
it, the more does he discover how solemn and impor- 



DIFFICULTIES EXAMINED . 115 

tant a place it should occupy in the thoughts of men. 
And in that book which professes to treat of the highest 
interests of men, we expect to find a prominent place 
assigned to this subject. And in the Old Testament 
we know that it is so. 

But how is it that all this ceases when the Xew Tes- 
tament church appears ? How is it that we are not once 
directly commanded to prepare for death in all the 
New Testament ? We know death is spoken of inciden 
tally. It would have been strange had it not. We 
know the Lord uses, in his own case, and for a general 
example, the words, " The night cometh when no man 
can work : I must work while it is day.'* We know 
also that death is referred to {e. g. Eev. ii. 10) in such 
a way as implies that Christians should " be up and 
doing." But any one who pleases to investigate the 
matter will find that the motive placed before the New 
Testament church to urge it to be watchful, is very dif- 
ferent from that which had previously been presented 
to the church of God. Compare the preacher's mes- 
sage in Ecclesiastes and in 1 Thessalonians, or the epis- 
tles to the seven churches. And we can understand the 
reason of it. Even as one would conclude that death 
would be the terminating object presented to the mind 
of the Jew to incite him to a bfe of watchful energy 
and piety, when we remember the nature of his dispen- 
sation, and the fact that the Lord's First Advent had 
not taken place ; so would we, in the same a priori 
manner, perceive that life, in some view of it, would 
be the object held before the Christian s mind to lead 
to the same result, when we recollect that his Lord 
^' hath brought life and immortality to light by the 
gospel." 



116 PREMILLEXXIALISM A DELUSIOX. 

One requires "but slight knowledge of things to per- 
ceive how the commands to prepare for the Lord's com- 
ing — to bear in mind that the Judge standeth at the 
door — to watch for the Bridegroom — and other like ex- 
pressions, could have no special reference to the Second 
Advent, in such a way as that the apostles and breth- 
ren — as that Luther and CaMn — as that Owen and 
Baxter — were to expect the \dsible descent of the Lord 
before they died ; for the Holy Ghost presents no falla- 
cious motive. We do not suppose any one will dispute 
this from Matt. x^i. 28 ; for it has already been shown 
that John, Peter, Paul, knew this was not the case ; 
and yet the motive to watchfulness is a real one, and 
one given in the most solemn way. Compare Matt, 
xvi. 26, 27. How are we to explain this ? Not surely 
in the way the Jews account for the non-appearance of 
their expected Messiah ? 

The churcii of Grod in all ages is one, though with 
a dissimilarity of dispensation. All it is required to 
believe will, therefore, be one too, with just the corre- 
sponding dissimilarity. The same motives urging to 
diligence in business, fervency of spirit, and the ser\dce 
of the Lord, will be presented to the whole church, 
and will contain these two elements, that an account 
has to be rendered, and that life is very short. Vie 
find death held up for this purpose to the view of one 
part ; will it not be so to the other, only with the par- 
ticular dissimilarity '? That it will, our Lord's words 
already quoted, and Heb. ix. 27, show clearly and indis- 
putably. And we think a good rule of biblical inter- 
pretation is this : when a special result is desired, and 
when every element is alike in both the cases where it 
is wished, except th'3 aspect of the motive presented to 



■ DirriCTLTIES EX.^3IIXED. 11" 

induce it. that motive is not two lout one. although it 
may be presented in two different aspects. At least 
we have the reason of congruity and scriptural unity 
for beKeving so. We hear the Lord referring to death 
as the end of all labour in his own case, and looking 
upon it as a motive for increased activity. He speaks 
of it in such a way as to imply the generic nature of 
the rule ; are we not, therefore, to conclude that the 
same thing is, in some way or other, indicated in the 
many injunctions given elsewhere to watch — to be 
diligent — to be holy — to be weaned from the world ? 

To be more precise. TTe point attention to the fact 
that the Xew Testament does not urge us to prepare 
for death in the same way that the Old does ; but that 
it directs us to be ready for the Lord's coming, and to 
have our loins girt and our lamps burning, not knowing 
when the Bridegroom may come, and the cry be heard, 
"' Go ye out to meet him.'"' Indeed, it would be more 
correct to say of all its commands, that they urge us to 
prepare for life rather than for death. And yet the 
words, ^' The night cometh when no man can work,'* 
show that both relate to one and the same event ; only 
in different aspects. And, whether we may be able to 
give a satisfactory explanation of the reason of this, 
we maintain it forms no diliiculty to oiu' system, but 
does very much so to that of the premillenarians. It 
will not do to run away with an idea, and cast a one- 
sided statement in the face of an opponent. Our friends 
are bound to look this matter directly in the face. They 
have met our system with it again and as^ain. "Well, 
can they explain it themselves ? Can they face the diffi- 
culty which has now been started ? They must know 
that the Lord places death before the minds of men as 



118 PREMILLEXXIALISM A DELrSION. 

a close to all tlieir activity, that tlie Old Testament does 
so too ; and yet that our minds are called to a very dil- 
ferent matter seemingly^ throughout all the Christian 
volume, when it throws men upon thoughts of the 
future, and warns them of the possibility of a meeting 
with their Lord ere many days or hours have fled. We 
cannot see that it is very kind to shackle us with this 
matter till an intelligent account be given, — on their 
principles, — of this interesting and solemn but diflicult 
subject. How can it be said we remove the motive and 
incentive to Christian watchfulness, by denying the Idnd 
of Advent they hold, when Paul and the primitive 
church had no such incentive held out to them ? How 
can they say these injunctions given to the Xew Tes- 
tament church to watch for the Lord's coming mean 
that they should expect the Second Advent every day, 
when the Master himself shows that it is death wliich 
is referred to — referred to, indeed, in a different way 
from what it was before, but still referred to ? And, if 
not, then is there no command to prepare for death in 
this new dispensation ; and that event described in the 
Old Testament as so terrible, is made nothing of in the 
New ; not only is its sting taken away, but all thought 
of it is lifted away ; it is not even mentioned in such a 
way as to stir men up : and those who knew that the 
Advent was far off from them are thus left without any 
motive for watchfulness and activity ! 

We are now prepared to show (at least to make the 
attempt, for we move with diflidence into the field that 
is stretching before us), that the hour of death is re- 
ferred to in those passages of which our friends have 
made so much use ; and still farther to prove that it is 
they who remove the motives to Christian watchfulness, 



DIFFICULTIES EXAMLN'ED. ll'J 

and give room and reason to the foolish vii'gins to fall 
asleep, by explaining all these pecuKar texts according 
to theii^ ideas of the Second Advent. This is a grave 
charge. When directed against the system we defend, 
we have felt it was a serious charge. We should nor 
like to sit at ease in any system that lay open to such a 
heavy accusation. Ys^e think our friends will not — 
friends in the real meaning of the word, — for we love 
some of them much, and are persuaded they do the 
same of us. We know they are earnest men. It is their 
deliverance from an error we aim at. 

There are two ways in which we would explain the 
fact, that when Christians are called upon to be ready 
for death, the command is expressed in such words as 
these, *• The coming of the Lord draweth nigh,'' ^' The 
Judge standeth at the door,"" '• Watch, for you know 
not what hour your Lord doth come." So far as we 
can characterize one phase of the difference between the 
old and the new dispensations, we would do it thus : — 
The Jew was told that his system was to fade into that 
which was more perfect, so as to become old and vanish 
away when the new covenant was established. His 
religion is to die into a brighter and a better. His 
religious life is to contemplate an end. So far as he is 
a believer, he has the bright hopes that we cherish ; but 
so far as he is under a system, he is — to compare Job, 
chapter xiv., with the words used by Paul in Hebrews 
viii. 13 — ^like an old man ready every day to vanish from 
the land of the living. Death is the terminating object 
to him ; eternity to us : he passes onward to death ; we 
to eternity. The motive urging him to diligence is 
that he has to die ; that which incites us to the same is 
that we have to live — to live eternallv. He must waicli 



120 PREMILLEXXIALISM A DELUSIOX. 

for death ; we for eternity. Xo one will mistake us. as 
if we assumed the views of those who imagine the Jew 
knew nothing of a resurrection. He did know of it. 
Job knew of it. And, if it had suited the design of 
Old Testament revelation, we should have been made 
better acquainted with the secret experience which the 
believers undoubtedly had in this particular. Wliat we 
view at present is the genius of the two dispensations, 
in the exhibition of which lies one of the many internal 
e\ddences of the divinity of the Scriptures : the Old 
Testament speaking much of death and little of resur- 
rection, the Xew speaking little of death and very much 
of the resurrection and the Second Advent ; and with 
our view on that, we affirm that when the Xew enjoins 
us to wait and watch for the Lord's coming, it means 
the same thing as the Old does when urging us -to re- 
member the days of darkness which shall be' many, and 
to seek the Lord in our youth, as there shall be no 
knowledge nor device in the grave. To the church as 
a body, the Second Advent occupies the same position 
as the first did to the Jewish church : it is its consum- 
mation, it should keep its eye fixed steadfastly upon it. 
But to individuals, as such, the motive for diligence in 
the one case is, that they may die at any moment ; and 
in the other, that at any moment they may look upon 
theii' Lord. 

There is a unity and precision in Holy Scripture — a 
unity of idea, and a precision in keeping that idea be- 
fore the mind of the church. The idea of the Scrip- 
tures before the time of Christ is. that men have to die, 
and therefore that they should be watchful and well 
prepared. That which obtains in the Grospels and 
Epistles is, that when they close their eyes on this 



DIFFICULTIES EXAMINED. 121 

world, they open them on the unseen and the eternal, 
and therefore that they should be as men making ready 
to meet the King. And seeing they are not now in 
bondage to death, but the servants of Jesus Christ, they 
should remember their Lord hath the keys of hell and 
v.f death ; that he hath taken the sting out of it. and 
therefore that gloomy death should not be the termi- 
nating object on which their minds may rest, but Him 
who hath power over it — who is its governor — who 
prevents it from touching them till he who hath the 
key in his hand come and open. This is a truth ; it is 
a truth which the Xew Testament is intended to teach. 
And with a precision, beautiful because divine, it says 
little about death — that would terrify — that would be 
the language of bondage again ; but it speaks of the 
coming- of EQm who hath the key of death, — and that 
is new covenant language — it encourages — it keeps us 
in peace. 

Xow, if it can be proved that the apostolic church 
knew the Second Advent was far distant, and if it can 
be proved that in point of fact the church of the first 
eighteen centuries has had nothing to do with it as a fact 
of history — and both of these can be demonstrated ; and 
if it can be proved that the wakeful language under dis- 
cussion was directly and personally addressed to these, 
then the expression must mean something else than the 
Advent, as we are accustomed to use the word. And 
if this be not its meaning, then we are obliged to search 
about for something else that will suit ; and if reason 
has not been given to show that the day of our death is 
Dieant thereby, we should despair of reaching the truth 
on any disputed point. Wherefore, since the Lord hath 
the key of death, and Christians have now to do with 



122 PREMILLEXNIALISM A DELUSION. 

him, and not with it, — when the inspired Word urges 
them, like the Jewish church, to prepare for death, it 
rightly does so by telling them to watch for the Lord's 
coming. It is no longer legal but gospel language that 
is used — it is no longer the words of bondage, but of 
hope, and joy, and life that are spoken ; it is the lan- 
guage of the new covenant, for the old has vanished 
away. And with a correct view of all things connected 
with the covenant of grace, one could, a priori, say, 
what in fact is the ease, that we would nowhere in the 
Xew Testament be told to prepare for death, but for 
the coming of the Lord. 

One expression, " The Judge standeth at the door," 
leads us to the second mode of explanation. , It cer- 
tainly implies that when the Lord comes to a man, the 
man is then and there at the bar of judgment. He 
passes from this world to the judgment-seat, there being 
no interval of time between death and judgmcLit. This is 
the ground we take up, and trust to explain in a clear 
and distinct manner. We have no patience with the 
explanations given by Bengel and others to the com- 
mand, "Watch, for you know not the day nor the 
hour;'' as if it were a mere play upon the word ^oic, or 
as if this were the case before the Lord's death and re- 
surrection, but not so afterwards. We take the words 
in their widest and most literal sense, and believe it can 
be shown that the most satisfactory meaning they can 
bear is the one indicated above. Surely they lead us 
to realize the judgment as very near to us. If we were 
sure that the day of judgment were to be next week, 
what an effect it would have upon the church ! But 
surely the same stirring effects should follow our realiz- 
ing the fact opened up in these words, " The Judge 



DIFFICULTIES EXAMINED. 123 

standeth at the door." There must be something real, 
something solemn, something awful in them. We can- 
not see that they mean any thing less than this, that 
any living man may have the consciousness of standing 
at the tribunal ere many hours may pass away. It is 
the realizing of this that shall lead us to "paint for 
eternity"* — "to walk honestly as in the day" — "to 
perfect holiness in the fear of the Lord" — " not to sleep 
as do others, but to watch and be sober." We shall 
attempt the explanation of this. 

When the Lord comes to a man as the Judge and 
passes sentence upon him, it is a person, a living 
agent that is at the bar. Judgment cannot pass upon 
a thing that is dead. Death itself, even when personi- 
fied, is not said to h^ judged, but only cast into the lake 
of fire. And therefore a dead body cannot be judged; 
it must first be raised up, and in a reunion with its 
soul be viewed in the person who lived, and spake, and 
acted. This person with an identity of the most exact 
kind, is to appear before the Judge and give an account 
of the ra dia rov (foj/j^arog, the things transacted by 
means of the body, and " while in the body." But at 
death this person is separated into the two parts of his 
nature, and we can see the dead bodies in our world 
for thousands of years. And seeing this to be the 
case, how can we say that the coming of the Lord takes 
place at death, and that when he comes it is as the 
Judge, — how can we say there is no interval of time 
between death and judgment ? For that judgment is 
one of persons, and not of parts. Even the special 
sentence that is passed upon the soul at death does not 

* I refer to what Xeuxies said, and which became a proverb, 
** Aeternitati pingo." 



124 PREMILLENNIALISM A DELrSION. 

seem either to exhaust the meaning of this or to reach 
it. For the soul of a man is not the person of a man, 
any more than his body. The way in which this difB- 
culty has commonly been got over is by saying that 
" as the tree falls so it must lie ; as death leaves, judg- 
ment will overtake us f — as much as to say that He 
who comes to us at death is the Judge, though the act 
of judgment may not be entered upon immediately. 
And hence, when we are watching and prej^aring for 
our departure from the world, we may do so, and 
should, with our eye resting on the judgment-seat, 
^ow, all this is quite true ; but we think there is a way 
of bringing men nearer to the Judge and the eternal 
sentence than this, which may be made intelligible with- 
out going very deeply into pneumatology. 

Unless we are led away with the error of those who 
think the soul falls asleep at death, and remains so till 
the resurrection, we must believe that judgment is 
passed upon it at the instant of death. If it exist and 
have the consciousness of existing (and reason and con- 
sciousness are inseiDarable from souls), it must have the 
consciousness of existing in some condition. But such 
a consciousness implies a virtual or real act of judicial 
appointment, or of recognition, which indeed ultimately 
comes to the same thing, implying, as it does, an act of 
divine volition. At death, therefore, if the soul pass 
into glory or into hell, it does so b}^ reason of a sentence. 
'WHierefore to it, the coming of the Lord at death is the 
coming of the Judge. There cannot be any interval of 
time between temporal death and the judgment of the 
soul ; for that would be an interval spent by it in no 
recognised state, which is entirely opposite to both 
Scripture and reason. Xow, if there be no interval 



DIFFICULTIES EXAJvIIXED. 125 

between death and the sentence which assigns the soul 
in its consciousness to a particular condition, there is 
none between death and eternal judgment ; for a sen- 
tence which cannot in nature admit of repeal, does not 
in nature admit of reiteration. It may be made public 
to others, and that jDublication may be thousands of 
years after ; but this does not constitute a reiteration 
of sentence to the consciousness of the subject : that 
consciousness is necessarily an everlasting one from the 
moment in which it is first excited. We at once grant 
that the general judgment means something else than 
this ; that it is visible, that it has visible subjects, and 
a universe of them as its objects. But we maintain 
that there must be this special act of judgment on each 
at his death, assigning his soul to its proper doom, un- 
less we are prepared to accejDt the dreams of those who 
speak of the sleep of the soul, or mayhap the still grosser 
\iews of Priestley ; and therefore that when the Lord 
comes at death, it is as the Judge he comes, — so far, at 
least, as the soul is concerned. 

Thereafter we do not supj^ose there is any succession 
of time with it. Whatever be its state, and whatever 
be the extent of beatific vision and blessedness it en- 
joys — and it is much higher than we can now conceive — 
the believer's soul ceases to be subjected to time. It may 
be that all it learned while in the body by experience 
or by faith is now a realized enjoyment ; it may be its 
state consists in an enlarged comprehension of all it 
knew before, and the delighted rapture in, or absorp- 
tion into, the united objects of its faith ; whatever it be 
we may hardly be able to tell, but this we know, that 
a soul has no consciousness of time or of succession save 
when it is in union with a body. It is one of the fun- 



126 PREMILLENNIALISM A DELUSIOX, 

damental axioms of metaphysics tliat a soul has no re- 
spect to space or time, and cannot be subjected to the 
consciousness of time's succession save in union with 
that which has respect both to space and to time, 
even the body. There is then no past and future mth 
it any longer ; it abides in a constant present, feeding 
in blissful intuition upon God and upon Christ, accord- 
ing to the extent of the knowledge and faith it arrived at 
when under the means of grace, until that, in union 
with the body again, the redeemed person shall go on 
in a growth of knowledge and of blessedness to which 
there is no limit. It is an incident attaching to our 
state here, that we have the past and the future in our 
ideas ; but when the immortal spirit quits tliis sub- 
lunary sphere, it has them no longer — till the resurrec- 
tion. This is a great truth craved after and approached 
by such writers as Emerson, but one which is not to 
be had here. It may be predicated of the spirits of 
just men made perfect, and it may be approached in 
endless glory, but assuredly we know but little of it 
now. We know something, however. We know so 
much as to confirm its truth. Even now the soul ex- 
hibits this its nature, as if it would tear asunder the 
bands which tie it to a succession, by embracing the 
mighty past and the glorious future, — the one objecti- 
fied by memory, and the other by faith, — and absorbing 
them into its own delighted (or sorrowful) present in- 
tmtions : a daily, a perennial consciousness. But it is 
in part. 

Wherefore, when we ^dew the soul of Abraham as 
now in glory, we cannot say that it is an older soul 
than when it quitted his body, for such a language is 
unknown in eternity (and pneumatology), and Abra- 



DIFFICULTIES EXAMINED. 127 

ham's soul is in eternity. To us, to the consciousness 
of humanity, many centuries have elapsed since Abra- 
ham died ; but he has no consciousness of that.* So 
that if we take the idea of a judgment passed upon a 
person at his death, it is right to say, so far as his soul 
is concerned, that there is, and that the Lord's coming 
is the coming of the Judge. But this is not the person 
that meets the Lord the Judge, but only his soul ; and 
therefore is this true in the case of the body ? Unless 
the body pass from existence to the judgment-seat, 
without being conscious of any interval of time, it 
would not be solid language to affirm of that statement, 
*' The Judge standeth at the door," that it is addressed 
to men as persons, so to be found true in their personal 
experience or consciousness. But the mere statement 
of this proviso is quite enough to obtain the conclusion 
we desire. Every one will perceive at once that a dead 
body has no consciousness, for it has not even sensa- 
tion ; and therefore that there is no consciousness of 
time's elapse with it — that is, there is no elapse of time 
to it. We — living men — are conscious that years pass 
away between the time we commit a loved one to the 
tomb, and the Lord's descent to judgment. But our 
ideas are no rule in the case. We arrive at the true 
idea in this matter according to the consciousness of the 
dead one, and tliat extends no farther than death, till 
it be resumed again in resurrection ; and it is resumed 
without any perception of an interruption. If Adam's 
soul is no older now than it was when he died, no more 

* We may be met here by some who will refer to the parable of 
Dives and Lazarus. Instead of attracting attention to it and away 
from the argument, we shall place it in a note at the end of the 
volume. 



128 PREMILLENXLILISM A DELUSION. 

is his body. When we see him in the resurrection, he 
"will be exactly nine hundred and thirty years old. 

But when we disjoin soul and body to arrive the more 
easily at the desired result of an investigation, we must 
not forget that it is only for the sake of furthering the 
inquiry. It is a person that is the proper subject of 
judgment and of sentence. To the person d^dng, He 
who hath the key of death comes, and it is as the Judge 
he comes. And whatever may be the difficulty of re- 
conciling the fact of the conscious existence of the soul 
during the disembodied state (and it does so exist) with 
the fact that there is no interval between death and judg- 
ment to any man, we hold it as none the less true, that 
immediately when a man dies, he has the consciousness of 
standing before the tribunal of Christ with the assembled 
humanity. We, thinking or speaking about the dead, 
take for granted such interval, because there is such to 
us ; but it is of the nature of Bacon's idola, and should 
cease from guiding our inquiries into absolute truth. 
There is no such interval to the dead ; there is none to 
the soul, there is none to the body, there is none to the 
person — his consciousness flows on unbroken to his own 
perception, though it seems broken to ours. We think 
we could even pass securely through an explanation of 
the difficulty which may be supposed to arise from the 
disembodied existence and consciousness of souls. Bi;t 
it would lead too much away from the design of this 
essay and too deeply into abstract reasoning. We seek 
merely to obtain the fact. And the fact, all para- 
doxical as it may appear, has been obtained. Will any 
one disprove it ? Will any one maintain the inter- 
vening of a space of time between death and judgment, 
between death and resurrection, in the consciousness of 



DIFFICTLTIES EXA^IIXED. 129 

the departed? Then we are prepared to show the legi- 
timate consequences of such a position. And we think 
thej are such as no sound Protestant theologian would 
like to homologate. 

But we do not suppose such a thing will be under- 
taken. We hardly imagine more will even be thought 
necessary to prove our position . But if more be required. 
then here it is. It is manifest that there is. abstractly 
speaking, no real difference between extension into space 
and extension into time. The eternal existence of Je- 
hovah is the infinite extension of Him who is life in one 
aspect of it. even as the infinitude of Him who is life is 
extension in the other aspect of it ; so as that immen- 
sity embraces both eternal existence and infinite per- 
vasion. On this principle we can ^iew all men stand- 
ing before the Lord when the covenant was made with 
Adam, only extending from the first parent backwards 
into a distance in space, instead of downwards into a 
distance in time ; which distance of space entirely va- 
mshes if we were to view it in a more meTaphy>ical 
way, and speak of the one humanity. But in order to 
get hold 01 the idea of individuals, let us admit the idea 
of succession, distance, extension. We are standing, 
suppose, upon some height, on what the Eabbins would 
call the Kotet emeth, the precision or phniacle of truth, 
and we see the congregated human race exiending away 
into the background beneath us, AVe see the whole : 
Adam and his race. Into the midst of them as fallen. 
He who is Saviour, King, and Juda^e comes. The gos- 
pel cry is raised. Many believe ; many reject. To many 
the sound reaches not at all. Meanwhile, amidst the 
activity of the various mechanisms which mould and 
develop humanity, the time approaches when all must 



130 PREMILLENNIALISM A DELUSION. 

pay the debt of a broken covenant, and wlien He who 
is in the midst of them as Judge will " take account of 
his servants." They must die. The Judge lifts his 
arm, and the sword of justice, doom, death, flashes be- 
fore the startled gaze of that universe of beings. The 
stroke is given. It begins in Adam's house and sweeps 
over all his race. We see it in its fatal progress till its 
work be accomplished. The Lord comes to each in 
particular, and he comes to all. He who is infinite em- 
braces all that extension in one fell stroke. Leave out 
the element of succession, view them all as dying at 
once, and each one is so old, and no more. Xo one is 
older when standing at judgment than when he died. 
The humanity dies, the humanity looks on the Judge, 
the humanity is in eternity. To that multitude the 
Lord comes ; all of it, and each one in particular, is 
urged to prepare for the Lord's coming, " for the Judge 
standetli at the door.'' 

But we must leave this. We do not think many who 
give thought to the matter will see very much difficulty 
in understanding how a soul that has in it the con- 
sciousness of judicial sentence, during what appears to 
living men thousands of- years previously, may stand 
before the public tribunal of the Lord as part of that 
person who is then and there to give account for the 
things done in the body, without implying a reiteration 
of judgment and sentence. Every one who knows the 
nature of conscience, and who knows that the sen- 
tence of the soul at death is one in conscience, will 
have no difficulty in the matter. Wherefore, when the 
New Testament urges us to prepare for the coming of 
the Lord, it means the coming of Him who is the Judge, 
the first steps of eternal judgment being the stroke of 



DIFFICULTIES EXA^IINED. 131 

death. The instant we close our eyes on time we open 
them upon eternity ; for, personally, we are not con- 
scious of any interval, the consciousness of the soul 
terminating on something else than either time or space. 
The moment we cease to have before our eyes the dear re- 
lations who weep around our dying bed, we open them (so 
far as our consciousness is concerned — forgive the repeti- 
tion) upon our Judge, seated on the great white throne, 
and see them standing there with us. Yea, each indivi- 
dual arises in the resurrection morn with the conscious- 
ness of the last word of his lips and thought of his mind 
present to him, in the very same way as we perceive we 
have spoken the moment after we have done so. We 
have heard of men being struck dead with the oath of 
profanity half-uttered in their lips ; they will awake, 
feeling that it is just going forth into an utterance, and 
their eyes shall behold their Judge. There was a city 
once, so runs the tale, which was instantaneously turned 
into a petrifaction. Men with their mouths in the act 
of uttering words were sealed up in that position. The 
very drop from the cistern did not reach the ground. 
Every thing stood motionless and still. But the reviv- 
ing wand was waved, the drop reached the trough, and 
the words flowed from the lips of the speakers, who 
were all unconscious of any interruption. Men have 
been turned into that grave where " there is no work, 
nor device, nor 'knowledge, nor wisdom," where ''the 
dead know not any thing," with words on their lips. 
When the trumpet sounds, it will seem to the resusci- 
tated dead as if the words were just proceeding from 
their mouths. Myriads would give the world then to 
awake with the consciousness of uttering such words as 
Stephen, and such breathings as those of Dr Ovren 



132 PREMILLENNIALISM A DELUSION. 

or Dr David Welsh. But it is too late. The Lord is 
come! 

This is the view indicated in our Westminster Con- 
fession : " As Christ would have us to be certainly per- 
suaded that there shall be a day of judgment, both to 
deter all men from sin, and for the greater consolation 
of the godly in their adversity; so will he have that 
day unknown to men, that they may shake off all car- 
nal security, and be always watchful, because they know 
not at what hour the Lord will come, and may be even 
prepared to say. Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly. 
Amen.^' 

We may hence see another reason why the Jew was 
told to prepare for death. To him the Lord had not 
yet come as the Eedeemer, and he could not have un- 
derstood such injunctions as are given to prepare for 
him as the Judge. The fact is a true one, that he had 
to prepare for this Judge ; but because he could not 
have understood it, because he would naturally have 
applied such statements to the coming of the Messiah, 
he is told to do with his might whatever his hand might 
find to do, for he would soon be in the grave. Then, 
indeed, to him, as w^ell as to us, the judgment opened. 
Thus, every thing in the distinctive nature of the two 
dispensations, and an accurate analysis of things as they 
really are, lead us to explain these injunctions of the 
N^ew Testament as similar to those of the Old — in both 
to be ready for death — in both to be waiting for the 
coming of the Lord. 

We should like to ask now, whether the system we 
oppose or the one we defend be the more calculated 
to make the people prepare for eternity, or, which is 
the same thing, to be ready and waiting for the Lord's 



DIFFICULTIES EXA3IINED. 133 

coming ? In the one, a false meaning is put upon cer- 
tain passages, and a doctrine preached from them, which 
could exercise no influence Trhatever on the minds of 
those who knew that the Second Advent was far future 
from the time in which they lived ; yea, indeed, there 
could be no salutary influence exerted by these passages 
(mth our friends' meaning of them) upon the church 
of the first eighteen centuries, unless we imagine the 
Holy Grhost countenancing a fable, for to them this 
meaning of it has been a fable. But in the common 
system, which has obtained all over the church, the true 
meaning of these texts being discovered will be owned 
by the Spirit of the Father and the Son — as in Apos- 
tolic, Reformation, Puritan times — to produce no sen- 
timental fancy, but a solid and holy awe upon the spirits 
of men ; for whereas the one leaves us to look away 
into the future for our Judge, the other brings him near, 
even to the door. I cannot but feel that I may step to 
the tribunal with this pen in the act of describing these 
very words. The Lord may come upon us this very 
night. We cannot tell. We must watch. Oh, that 
men imderstood this ! An earnest, believing knowledge 
of this would lead to a ministry of fire. We could not 
lose ourselves in vague dreams and controversies if we 
were li\ing thus near to our Judge. Accustom the 
people's minds to this. They may find it diflicult for a 
little to understand such modes of thinking and her- 
meneutik, but why ? Only because they are kept con- 
versant with certain words, and phrases, and ideas, 
stereotyped well-nigh over the ministry of the church. 
But why should this continue ? "\Yhat is the use of our 
Hebrew and Greek, our Logic and Philosophy ? Is it 
not to reach the mind of the Holy Ghost, and to guide 



134 PREMILLENNIALISM A DELUSION. 

the mind of the age ? We tremble when we think that 
a false view of these passages, or a dead stereotyped 
way of explaining them, by men who are otherwise in 
earnest and holy, is depriving the church of one of the 
most powerful incentives to self-denial and holiness. 

But we must pass from this inviting subject, merely 
remarking that if the Bible have reference to the whole 
church, then to draw the doctrine of the Second Ad- 
vent (as our friends use the words) from passages in- 
tended to guide the whole church into diligence and 
watchfulness, would have been at once opposed by the 
apostles — is opposed to the mind of the Lord's Spirit. 
There will, indeed, be the Second Advent, when every 
eye shall see the Lord ; and, no doubt,^ these passages 
contain an intimation thereof, for there is a pregnancy 
of meaning in them, as shall be explained presently. 
But if one volume tells us that this will not take place 
till many ages pass away, and yet urges us to be in daily 
expectation of meeting our Lord, we are forced to con- 
clude that two aspects of it are presented. And we 
believe it has been made tolerably clear that our pre- 
millenarian friends have missed the meaning of these 
their favourite passages ; and instead of their charge 
against our system being true, — the charge, namely, of 
making people act like the foolish virgins, — ^it tells alto- 
gether and fatally against their own. 

2. The second particular to be attended to is EzekieFs 
vision. This is confessedly a difficult portion of the 
Holy Scripture. It is not a little surprising that truths 
of such an important nature as the premillennial theory 
embraces, — granting they were true, — should be found 
in the most difficult passages of the Bible. We would 
be inclined to draw a prima facie evidence against the 



DIFFICULTIES EX.i2.IIXED. 135 

whole thing from this fact, that passages which are the 
most obscure are made to contain the doctrine which is 
said to be most necessary for awaking the life of the 
church. Of course, we are aware of the reply which 
might be made to this. We know perfectly that it is 
said the fact is stated clearly and distinctly enough 
elsewhere, and that it is only the time, and manner, and 
details, and consequences, that are veiled in obscurity. 
But, pray, what is the fact without these ? What would 
this theory be without these ? We could speak a good 
many homely truths here, only we must forbear. We 
trust, by the Master's blessing, to obtain the result we 
aim at without refering to any thing unpleasant. But 
certainly we have often wondered how our friends can 
see so very clearly into the details of this vision of 
Ezekiel. We are as intimately acquainted with our 
Hebrew Bible as any of our premillenarian friends, and 
have carefully and painfully hung over this prophet's 
page. But we cannot say we are prepared to give any 
thing like an unexceptionable explanation of the last 
nine chapters of his book. We do not shrink from say- 
ing that they who find nothing but clearness in this 
vision, and who can enter into all its details with volu- 
ble ease, have never fairly faced its difficulties. Let 
any one take up Lightfoot or the Bible of John Henry 
Michaelis, and after wading through the extent of 
thought to which their notes and investigations will 
give rise, we believe he will find that, — with all the 
assistance he can get from the masters in Israel, and 
from a proper knowledge of the original, and from such 
an acquaintance with the Jewish ritual and ideas as 
every theologian should possess, — he will remain rest- 
less and unsatisfied with the best theory he can form, 



136 PREMILLEXXIALISM A DELUSION. 

and be very much tempted with Lightfoot himself to 
give over the attempt to understand it in despair. What 
a pity, we feel inclined to exclaim, that John Cahon 
was not spared to give us his \dews of these chapters ! 
We should have had something more satisfactory than 
either Professor Dathe or Havernick has given us, valu- 
able as is the commentary of the latter. Honestly stat- 
ing our inability to exjilain all these chapters, we might 
leave them. But we have given a good deal of careful 
investigation to the matter, and believe we shall be able 
to do two things : — to show in general that this vision 
contains nothing countenancing premillennialism ; and 
to give what seems to be the design of it, and there- 
fore the key to its interpretation ; adding a few inci- 
dental observations. 

We dissent from the idea that it opens up what the 
Second Temple might have been, if the Jews had chosen 
to return and implement the prophecy, as being wholly 
beneath the dignity of prophecy and the Sphit of God. 
We dissent also from all the Jewish comments we have 
seen, as being radically unsolid, and subversive of the 
Christian religion, at least as ignoring that system. 
And we specially protest against Christian writers bor- 
rowing Jewish ideas. God hath sent a spirit of judicial 
blindness into them, and they are unable to understand 
the plainest parts of the Old Testament, how much less 
then the most obscure ? Christians should beware of 
imbibing their conceits. Are those who do imbibe 
them aware of what rabbinical ideas and writings really 
are ? Do they know the explanations of Scripture which 
are spread over the Talmud ? If not, let them read 
Allen on Modern Judaism, and they will not only get 
an insight into Jewish blindness, and godlessness, and 



DIFFICULTIES E:vJ3ILS*ED. 137 

blasphemy, but may also arrive at the origin and cha- 
racter of premillenarianism. TTe vrish we had room for 
a few extracts, but we must not. We dissent also from 
the idea that this book corresponds in its scope and parts 
^vith the Apocah^Dse of John. This view is placed be- 
fore us very much in these terms : After the denuncia- 
tions upon the peoples around Israel, we are told of the 
raising up of the Good Shepherd — of Israel's return to 
him — of the conversion of the Gentiles — the resurrec- 
tion of the dead (chap, xxxvii.) — the destruction of the 
wicked — the eternal glory, in the new heavens and new 
earth, in the heavenly city and temple. This throws the 
last nine chapters to a period posterior to the resurrec- 
tion of the dead, as the two last of the Apocah-|3se (at 
least down to chapter xxii. 8) are. On the contrary, the 
whole book is to be closed ere time be at an end. We 
are sure of this from the references which are made to 
days, and nights, and weeks, and months, and from the 
statement that "the east gate of the temple shall be 
shut during the six working days ; all which is disown- 
ed in the Eevelation of John, chapters xxi., xxii., which 
belong to eternity and not to time — which belong to the 
church triumphant and not either militant or millennial. 
^'Ve therefore agree with our friends, whose system 
we are analyzing, that Ezekiers city and temple are to 
be sought for while the church is in its earthly position, 
— that is, not yet entered upon its eternal rest. But, as 
there are diversities of views among them, we require 
to say that they who explain the two last chapters of 
the Apocalypse as belonging to millennial times, must 
believe that Ezekiel's vision is fulfilled before that time ; 
for the former exliibits a much higher condition of the 
church than the latter does, having no temple, no night, 



138 PREMILLENNIALISM A DELUSION. 

no death, whicli the latter has. And they who believe 
with us that the former, the Apocalyptic vision, belongs 
to the eternal blessedness of the saved church, cannot 
maintain the same concerning that of our prophet. Eze- 
kiel's prophecy and John's Eevelation are not coinci- 
dent ; and, therefore, we are left to examine his last 
nine chapters without any reference to the last two of 
John. This cannot be too much pointed out. There 
are many who hold that John s vision is millennial. Of 
course, unless they are " spiritualizers,'' they believe 
there shall be there no night — no pain — no death — no 
temple ; for such is expressly stated. Then how can 
they apply EzekieFs vision to the same period, where we 
have a temple — where death is described (ch. xliv. 22, 
25) — and where the alternation of day and night marks 
some of the most important services of the temple. And 
as regards those who refer that part of the Apocalypse 
to the glory of eternity, and who explain our prophet's 
vision as if it pointed out millennial times, we shall 
place these few words under their notice. It has been 
proved that the Lord will not come till death be de- 
stroyed. If they think he will enter into this temple, 
how can they account for death being referred to in the 
way it is, and marriage, and controversies, and things 
^^ dead of itself or torn, whether fowl or beast" ? They 
tell us of the difficulties which meet our system. Why, 
what system has ever been beset with more of these 
than theirs is seen to be ! Eeally, they should not speak 
of difficulties when they can bear up so easily under all 
those which we have seen lying upon their theory like 
an annihilathig incubus. Are we to " spiritualize" this 
vision ? If not, are we to take every particular liter- 
ally ? The polling of priest's heads instead of shaving 



DIFFICULTIES EXA^^IIXED. 139 

them ? The fishers at Engedi spreading their nets ? The 
defilement from touching a dead man ? Surplices ? Cir- 
cumcision ? Sacrifices ? An altar with four horns ? We 
will stop. The indignant testimony of the apostle in his 
Epistle to the Galatians should for ever put a stop to 
such wild ideas. Either the vision is literal, or it is not. 
If literal, then these things are literal; and to make 
these things literal is not only to ignore but to subvert 
the Christian faith. And if not literal, then the theo- 
ries of many fall to the ground. 

We are now in possession of some things which help 
us very much in wading through the intricacies of this 
vision. If it cannot be explained literally, we are at 
liberty to cast about for its figurative sense. Suppose 
it contained a description of the church of God in gos- 
pel times, as very many Christian commentators have 
thought, then how could such a description be given to 
a Jew but in Jewish language and figures ? We grant 
that Isaiah does so in different terms. But besides the 
peculiarity of Ezekiel's mode of teaching, which is 
symbolic throughout, and which, therefore, for the 
preservation of unity, requires that this description be 
symbolic too, we question whether the Jew would un- 
derstand Isaiah so well as he would Ezekiel. One thing 
is certain, from chap, xliii. 10, 11, that God desired the 
Jews should clearly and distinctly know his meaning, and 
he adopted the most suitable way to do so. To those 
who turned away all the prophet's preaching, and all his 
denunciations of divine wrath, with the sneer, " Doth 
he not speak parables?'' that preaching is represented 
pictorially, that there may be no possibility of ignorance 
or evasion. And however difiicult we may find this 
part of Scripture, compared with the clear Isaiah, the 



140 PREMILLEXNIALISM A DELUSION. 

evangelic prophet, there is no doubt that the Jew had 
far more difficulty in guessing what he meant than in 
understanding what Ezekiel wished to convey, accom- 
panied as the pictorial description would be with ex- 
planations. Xor do we here mean th^ unbelieving Jew 
alone, though him principally. 

Two things we believe will be granted us by those 
who have given any degree of attention to the matter, — 
that unity required our prophet to present evangelical 
truths under Jewish figures ; and that the Jew would 
understand him better in this way than if he had spoken 
like Paul, or even like Isaiah. There is unity in Isaiah ; 
and yet how have the Germanists demurred to the 
authenticity of the last part of his book ! And if Eze- 
kiel had ceased his usual style, and given us his vision 
as Paul w^ould do, the utmost external evidence would 
hardly have counterbalanced the internal marks of a 
broken unity and a different authorship. The principle 
of unity would thus lead us to expect evangelical truths 
of the kind (by hypothesis) before us, to be presented by 
our prophet in a symbolic or pictorial manner; and espe- 
cially when there was a reason for it — the reason, name- 
ly, of compelling the attention and the understanding of 
a sensuous people. Apart from the insuperable difficul- 
ties attending a literal meaning being given to it, these 
things would suffice to incline us to the idea that the 
vision is figurative. Our friends may call us spiritual- 
izers if they choose. "^Miether they or we have appeared 
most literal in explaining the Scriptures which have 
been analyzed, we leave all to judge. And if we are 
compelled to explain this vision in a spiritual way, it is 
nothing at all extraordinary. Besides, that any one 
who knows the laws of a just criticism will not think 



DIFFICULTIES EXAMINED. 141 

it strange, we have hundreds of examples in the Bible 
itself; every one knows how often one thing is pre- 
sented in different ways by different writers, and fre- 
quently by the same writers. Every minister of the 
Word must have recourse to it to guide the under- 
standings of his people — every public speaker studies 
the art. Had Isaiah's style corresponded with that of 
Ezekiel, we should have had a pictorial instead of an 
evangelical — a figurative instead of a literal prophecy. 
Of course they are combined. All the prophets com- 
bine them. 

AVe have supposed the truth of those commentaries 
which refer this vision to gospel times, in order to ob- 
tain thereb}" the principle of interpretation ; and this we 
have got, undeniably got. But now, where is the autho- 
rity for explaining this vision of gospel times ? Why do 
our commentators fix it down to the Christian dispen- 
sation ? It is entirely arbitrary on their part ? The 
vision does not say so. Its position in the prophecy does 
not imply it. Some rule or principle must be adhered to 
to enable us to find out the mind of Grod's Spirit in 
the Word. Either a direct undoubted statement, or a 
quotation by another inspired writer, or position and 
order relatively to other things which are defined, must 
be produced. We have none of these here. Xo reel- 
son has been given such as Avill stand the test of the 
common principles of criticism. It may be a good and 
lucky guess. It cannot be more. 

We have already said we move with diffidence in 
stating our own opinion. But whether it appear satis- 
factory or not, enough has surely been said to show 
that some explanation must be sought for, and that 
a difterent one from any we have ourselves seen ; 



142 PREMILLEXXLiLISM A DELUSIOX. 

and if sucli be given, that tlie reasons for it shall be 
stated. 

So far as we can arrive at any thing definite in the 
landmarks of the vision, it is much more extensive than 
has generally been imagined. All that is desired by 
those who explain it of gospel times is embraced in the 
meaning we adopt, but their view is far too limited. 
They throw it all into the future, — the future as respected 
Ezekiel's times. They explain it as bemg an embodi- 
ment or representation of the Christian dispensation. 
Xow, this dispensation had not then commenced; where- 
as chapter xliii. 7, 8, surely seems to indicate that " the 
house " which our prophet saw measured existed in that 
very time, and previously. It says, "And the house of 
Israel shall not still (shall not auy longer, "^'>' ^i'; — com- 
pare G-enesis xxxv. 10) pollute my holy name 

by placing their threshold with my threshold, and their 
door-post beside my door-post.'' One cannot read over 
these and some otlier verses, — keeping out of ^'iew for 
the time those ideas which have been derived from 
translations and comments. — without being convinced 
that the prophet speaks of a temple which had been 
erected long before the times in which he lived, and 
which the Jewish nation had dared to defile. And had 
Dathe fixed upon the first, instead of the second temple, 
and given us as the meaning of the vision this idea : That 
the prophet was commissioned to go minutely over the 
sacred thmgs and services, to show how far astray Israel 
hal gone, and how much reason there was for their 
punishment, — he would not have been so wide of the 
mark as he is. For it is as if the prophet had reasoned 
thus with the people: "You complain of your hard lot 
and your grievous afiSictions, — you complain that Jehovah 



DIFFICULTIES EXAMINED. 143 

is not fulfilling his covenant with you, but hath cast 
you out of your land ; but is it at all wonderful when 
you consider how you have profaned his covenant, and 
how his very name has been blasphemed among the 
Gentiles through you ? And that you may not be able 
to deny this, let us go minutely over that holy ser\T:e 
which separated you from all the peoples which dwell 
on the earth; look at every part of it, and see how 
every part has been defiled by you ; recal the history of 
your kings and their idolatrous doings, and see how 
they and you have made my house a mere temple of 
abominations/' If we are to explain the \'ision literally, 
then this would form the .key to such interpretation. 
But there are many things in it which could not be em- 
braced in this way. We would be met by intermin- 
able difiiculties if this were supposed to exhaust the 
vision. Still we have one guiding thread in this view 
of the subject, and shall try and get some more. 

Suppose this were the way of explaining it. and that 
Solomon's temple and the Levitical ritual were really 
the matters described, and that the guilt of the people 
were pointed out by a reference to the defilements 
which they introduced into that temple, and theh^ apos- 
tasy from its divinely-appointed ritual (see chapters viii., 
xvi., xviii., xx.) ; whether would the circumstances of 
the ease, the general character of this book, and the 
stage of prophetical advance or of the development of 
the divine plan of mercy require the eyes of a deter- 
minedly carnal people to be fixed upon the t}^3ical house 
and its economy, or upon that which it t\^ified ? In 
other words, whether would their minds be directed to 
that peculiar sanctuary service which they had in the 
midst of them, or to the spiritual reality which it ex- 



144 PREMILLENNIALISM A DELUSION. 

hibited ? We have no hesitation in saying that the de- 
sign of God would not have been accomplished. — a 
design which contemplated their return into the faith 
and spirituality of Abraham, — if their attention had been 
turned merely to an external and typical economy, which 
had already been cast behind them and profaned. And 
the opening vision of chapter first, and the many other 
exhibitions of a purely spiritual religion, besides a thou- 
sand other things which will now flash on the minds of 
those who have carefully studied this prophet, and the 
design of God in the Jewish service, clearly indicate 
that " the house'' which is shown to the people of Israel 
is that house of God which Paul says is "the church of 
the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth." 
^ow, this church of the living God is not a mere syno- 
nyme for the Christian church, nor for the Jewish 
church, nor for the Abrahamic church, which compre- 
hends both ; but of the one universal church of God — 
the church of all ages, and of all lands. 

Thus, then, we venture our own view of this part of 
Ezekiel, as not only free from the difliculties which 
attend any other we have met with, but as explaining 
to all its extent the vision and its details. It is an ex- 
hibition in Jewish language of that holy catholic church 
into which they were adopted, and part of which was 
exhibited among them, with a service suitable to the 
development of the plan of grace and of the human 
mind at the time. The details (however minute) of 
the Jewish religion could never exhaust those that are 
given here, but they furnish a key to unlock the sym- 
bolic characters in which the church of God is de- 
scribed. Let us see how this will fit into the circum- 
stances of those times. 



DIFFICULTIES EXA^^IIXED. 145 

Our prophet is commissioned by God to declare the 
vision with the utmost minuteness for a special purpose, 
chapter xliii. 10, 11. It was intended to set in as 
strong a light as possible those besetting sins of the 
house of Israel, jDride and idolatry, that they might 
be ashamed. In then idolatry, they had persisted in 
provoking God to anger ; yet in their pride they rea- 
soned in this way: "We are Jehovah's people (Matt. iii. 
9) — we are the lot of his inheritance (see the Talmud 
on this expression). He cannot do without us; we are 
the only people where he is known. If he cast us away, 
there will be no knowledge of him in the earth ; he 
will not put us away. ^^Tiy then heed the words of 
Jeremiah or of Ezekiel, who si3eak only of evil? ^Do 
they not speak parables V — (Chapter xx. 49.) Let us act 
as we will we cannot be cast away, for then Jehovah 
would have no people, no church, no temple ; and the 
heathen would boast in their gods, which Jehovah will 
not permit. To prevent this boasting of the uncircum- 
cised, we shall ever be preserved ; for he who kept our 
father Abraham though but one, will not destroy us 
who are so many." — (Chapter xxxiii. 24.) Thus was it 
that the deluded people buoyed themselves up with 
hope and clothed themselves with pride, at the very 
time their city was razed, their temple a ruin, and they 
themselves captive in an enemy's land. The very same 
thing was exhibited at the final destruction of their 
city and nation, and tracks the whole of the rabbinic 
literature, and is found in the Jewish characters to this 
day. 

To counteract this self-righteous, conceited spirit, the 
Lord gives Ezekiel this vision, to be declared minutely 
and Avith explanations, so as that they would know what 

K 



146 PREMILLENNIALISM A DELUSION. 

was meant, (all tliis is conveyed by the combining of ".^l^ 
and^"''^^^ used in chapter xliii. 10, 11 ; compare chapter 
xl. 4.) It is a positive declaration that he hath had a 
church in all ages irrespective of them, although he 
had been pleased to confine it to their nation for a time. 
Before they Tvere a people, and after they are cast away, 
this church and its service has its place in the world. 
It is declared that they were grafted into God's church 
in absolute sovereignty (Deut. vii. 7)', that its service 
was revealed to them in gi*ace and mercy, and that they 
ought to know another people might have been chosen 
as soon as they — (chap. xvi. 2, 3.) Instead of remem- 
bering this, and walking humbly before God, they had 
lived as if the land — '^my land" — were their own; they 
had looked on the temple as their own property, which 
they might put to any use they pleased ; and they had 
imagined they were at liberty to follow any religious 
services they might devise, or combine idolatrous wor- 
ship with that of Jehovah ; they had served God and 
Mammon ; they had set their threshold beside that of 
God, and their post beside his. This was their crime ; 
they shut up God's church among themselves, and then 
acted as if they could do what they would with it. 
They thought and spake as if the heavenly religion and 
worship must live and die with them. 

But they were mistaken. God's church was in the 
world before them, and would be so after they were 
scattered among the nations of the earth. Its existence 
in the world was proved and illustrated by those his- 
torical facts which are contained in the vision of the 
waters, chapter xlvii. — a vision conveyed in a way 
which would suit the Jewish mind, but which is surely 
to be explained according to our modes of thinking 



DIFFICULTIES EXA:,IIXED. 14:7 

now. This principle mu^t be yielded to us. that if one 
and the same object were presented to the Jew and to 
us, the form in which it would be so necessarily will 
suit the different habits and modes of thinking. For 
suppose that the holy catholic church were contained 
in this ^dsion, and that it were given to us, woidd ir 
not have been in our mode of speaking of these things : 
and would not the Jew have been at liberty, yea, under 
the necessity, of transposing it into the scale which was 
familiar to his mind^ in order to understand it ? The 
Bible e^idences itself to be divine, not only in develop- 
ing the spiritual life of men, but also the mental and 
emotional. The Scriptures of the Old Testament were 
given to Jews, and in such a way as they could under- 
stand ; but their language is to be clothed, in Xew Tes- 
tament garb, that we may perceive its meaning too. 
TTherefore, by a reference to many portions of the 
Word, we discover that these waters are the doctrines 
of grace. This is distinctly shown in verses 8, 9. It 
is the river which makes glad the city of Grod, — the 
doctrines of grace, — the gospel. There is a singular 
change of words in the ninth verse ; the river is all at 
once called the two rivers, when the reviving effect oi' 
them is to be declared. TTe may refer to John iii. 8. 
as a beautiful parallel passage. The influences of the 
Holy Ghost do not constitute a river distinct from that 
of the gracious Word. In the one river of grace, we 
have both the Word of salvation and the Spirit's in- 
fluences. The river which flows from the house into 
the chiu'ch, and from it into a dead world, is not one, 
but two, when the healing takes place. So that from 
the day in which the first gospel sermon was preached, 
— preached in that blessed promise made to our tremb- 



148 PREMILLENNIALISM A DELUSION. 

ling first parents and embraced by them, — the waters of 
the sanctuary, the promise and the Spirit of grace, 
have been flowing forth and quickening dead souls 
wherever they come. The Spirit is not seen; men's 
minds are not in contact with any thing but a word ; 
but when the healing takes place, the river is found to 
be not one, but two. " Our gospel came to you not in 
word 07i7y." Such puerile books as ^^Erchomena" may 
cast an empty and verbose ridicule upon God's glorious 
gospel, and sneer at Bible societies and Methodist meet- 
ing-houses, in a way that will gladden the heart of the 
veriest Jesuit ; but that will not for a moment dim the 
heavenly lustre which shines the more sweetly that it 
is bespattered with ignorance or enmity. No, "the 
preaching of the cross is to them that perish, foolish- 
ness ; but unto the saved it is the power of Grod;" 
and " potentia Dei nihil aliud est quam Deus omnipo- 
tens."* 

This river, — this gospel, — these influences of the 
eternal Spirit, — these " two rivers," have been proceed- 
ing from the throne of God into the world in all ages, 
for he has had a church from the beginning. The de- 
gree of this church's development is declared in the 
beginning of this chapter, in the four distinctly-marked 
periods of its history. In the antediluvian church, the 
doctrines of grace were but dimly revealed, and the 
power of religion but feebly felt : " the waters were to 
the ancles." From the deluge to Sinai, the revelation 
became brighter, especially to Abraham, Isaac, and 
Jacob : " the waters were to the knees." From the 
giving of the law to Christ, brighter still shone the 
lio^ht of salvation : " the waters were to the loins." And 
from Christ onward through the Christian dispensation, 



DIFFICULTIES EXAMINED. . 149 

life and immortality are brouglit to light by the gospel : 
the waters are " a river to swim in." These four periods 
— the Antediluvian, the ^oachic (not ^' Abrahamic/' 
that is more extensive), the Mosaic, the Christian, have 
all been vi\ified by God's gospel, though in diflferent 
degrees. And when Ezekiel would point out this to 
these Jews, they would see how sadly in error they 
were, when thinking they were " the people, and that 
wisdom would die with them," — that they were the 
church, and that the Lord's grace and love were neces- 
sarily confined to them. 

It will thus be seen that this explanation embraces 
that of the most part of the British commentators and 
divines. The river is rolling on since the first j)romise 
was given ; and now, in pentecostal power and fulness, 
it is going forth to embrace the world : and " magna est 
Veritas Dei et prevalebit." By which we are brought, 
as in Zechariah, to the state of things on which the 
prophetic eye rested from afar, but glistened with holy 
delight as it did so, and may bathe our rapturous spirits 
in the sweet font of all the prophecies — (prophecies 
all claimed by our friends to support their strange 
system ! ) 

We think this is the key to Ezekiel's vision. We could 
give a plausible explanation of very many of its details, 
though indeed we would shrink from attempting all. 
But in the meanwhile enough has been said, and it is 
humbly thought with proper reasons, for discarding the 
views which premillenarians entertain of it. l^o coun- 
tenance is given to their theory from any thing that is 
said in this part of holy writ. Of course, we admit that 
the future restoration of the Jews is intimated in it. 
But this is not a matter peculiar to the hopes of our 



ioO premillenm:alism a delusion. 

friencis. We are sure of it, even as tlie}^, and upon better 
grounds. Like all the other ways of God, mercy is 
mingled with judgment here. Truly he smites with 
one hand, and supports with the other. In the very 
midst of the rejection of Israel, promises are sovereignly 
given of their being graffed in again into God's church. 
But this we pursue not now. In closing our remarks 
upon these chapters, we simply add a word upon 
another subject than the present one. Let this way of 
interpreting the vision be established by a more exten- 
sive argumentation than we have time for here, and let 
it become the idea associated with it in the popular 
mind or the general mind, and we have an invincible 
argument for the perpetuity of the S,\bbath from 
chapter xlvi. 1, 2 : •' Thus saith the Lord God, The gate 
of the inner court that looketh toward the east (from 
which the living waters issued, chap, xlvii,) shall be 
shut the six working days ; but on the Sabbath it shall 
he opened, and the gate shall not be shut until the 
evenhig ; likewise the people of the land shall worship 
at the door of the gate before the Lord, in the Sab- 
baths and in the new moons." Observe also the pro- 
vision of a standing ministry, and the provision made 
for its comfort. 

3. We had intended to give a few notes upon the 
twenty-fourth chapter of Matthew and the second 
epistle to the Tliessalonians. But to do any thing like 
justice to them would greatly too much lengthen this 
essay. And after glancing at the judicious and full 
remarks to be found on these places (chap. xxiv. 29, 
30 ; chap, ii.) in Bengel's Gnomon (Bengelii Gnomon 
Novi Testamenti, a book which should be in every mi- 
nister's library), we believe it would be unnecessary. 



DIFFICULTIES EXAMINED. 151 

However, the chief thing we had in view to bring out 
may be stated in a very few words. We have frequently 
wondered why different events — events with centuries 
perhaps or even millenaries of years between them — 
should be found combined in the prophetic vision, and 
narrated in a kind of involved description. The double 
meaning of prophecy has generally been produced as 
the principle of interpretations. As to that principle 
we shall speak immediately in the next part ; meanwhile, 
the rationale of it may be exhibited thus. Suppose 
that the system of events could be compared to several 
concentric circles, whose exponents are, «, 6, c, cZ, e. x. 
Let a be the central circle, having its centre common to 
all the others, and let it expand in the course of di^dne 
providence into h ; let the expansion continue to c, so 
as that c not only embraces but exhibits the elements of 
a and h in a higher development, like the motion of a 
wave on a still expanse of water caused by the dropping 
of a stone into any part, and so on to x. Let ^ both 
embrace and exliibit the elem^ents of the others in their 
highest development. Then it is clear that the descrip- 
tion of any one of these will equally apply to all. There 
might be a specialty in some of the details ; but the 
salient points would be distinctly marked in the whole. 
By this specialty the mind might be fixed on one more 
than on another, so as to trace out the whole of it, even 
when a description — as in Matthew chapter xxiv. — is 
given which involves two or more. "We are inclined to 
think that the course of events does fall out according 
to this hypothesis. A large induction of facts, and the 
philosophy of the mighty principles which are in opera- 
tion in the history of our race, lead to the con^dction 
that good and evil, that truth and error, are developed 



152 PREMILLEXXIALISM A DELUSION. 

by great cycles. The more deeply one dives into the 
principles and facts of history, moral or civil, the firmer 
will this comdction become; and the help which is 
afforded by the understanding of it, in order to arrive 
at the meaning of prophecy — of Matthew xxiv., for in- 
stance — is most valuable. 



' GLORIOUS THLNGS SPOELEX OF ZIOX/'' 153 



PAET y. 



We have now finished the subjects wliich are properly 
in oui' way in investigating the claim of premillennialism. 
Very much more might have been said, and many other 
arcyuments which have been solidly enouo'h adduced bv 
other writers on the same side might have been illus- 
trated, and the various topics touched upon in oiu' essay 
might have been greatly more lengthened out. But on 
the grounds which have been laid down, we tliink we 
are not unjustified in designating this essay by the 
title which it bears. It has not been done to hurt the 
feelings of our friends. We love and respect them too 
highly to ofiend them in any such way. Lideed, on 
this very account we have forborne the mention of their 
books or the names of those who write them, — one book 
alone, which is calculated to give pain to any one who 
reads it, being only hinted at. But it is our conscientious 
conviction that the theory is a delusive one, and that 
it should therefore be attacked in an open and honest 
way. Wliether we have shown it to be so, we leave to 
the calm verdict of the careful and prayerful reader. 
If assistance be given to any one, and esj^ecially to some 



154 PREMILLENNIALISM A DELUSION. 

ministers of our acquaintance wlio are doubtful which 
view to take, then let all the glory be to God. 

While assaying to demolish an error, we have by no 
means been overturning the doctrine of the Millennium. 
We entirely agree with our friends as to the fact of such 
a thing being yet a part of the church's history. We 
entirely agree with them that the Jews shall be converted 
and restored to their own land ; that the world shall 
be converted to Christ, and the antichristianism of Chris- 
tendom and the paganism of heathendom be swept away; 
and we only differ as to the quomodo, and the precise 
nature of the state of things hereafter. And lest any 
should imagine that the preceding remarks tell against 
the fact of a Millennium in any way, and especially 
against an event which we %dew with much interest, as 
being pregnant with glorious effects to the church and 
the world — we mean the salvation, temporal and spiri- 
tual, of the seed of Jacob — we shall now add some obser- 
vations on this subject. Suj^pose we were asked to 
defend some of the truths of unfulfilled prophecy, to 
which premillenarianism, by a kind of conventionalism, 
has come to lay claim, and in doing so to keep the sys- 
tem we have defended in a prominent way before the 
view, we should find little difficulty in doing so. Take, 
for instance, the return of the Jews to their own land, 
and their conversion to the faith of Christ. This is a 
cheering prospect, if it be true ; and its truth can be 
established in many ways and by various modes of argu- 
ment. We could fill a volume with proofs of this. We 
shall pursue but one, taken from the prophet Joel. 
And this proof we take in order to show the application of 
the principle already laid down, which is generally known 
under the designation of the double meaning of prophecy. 



" GLORIOUS THINGS SPOKEX OF ZIOX/*' 155 

In the second chapter of Joel's prophecy, we are told 
of the deliverance of the people of Israel from the effects 
of the devastations mentioned at the beginning of the 
book. It is said, " Ye shall eat in plenty and be satis- 
fied, and praise the name of the Lord your God, that 
hath dealt wondrously with you." There had been a 
famine in the land ; for the narrative spreading over the 
first part of the prophecy is strictly literal, being one of 
those locust plagues which are so common in eastern 
countries. But while we are to view it thus, we know 
from other parts of the book that these matters are 
figurative of God's present dealings with Israel and 
with Israel's country. It runs into the whole of Jewish 
history. We would not say that there is a double 
meaning in the book, or in this twenty-sixth verse of 
the second chapter, but rather that there is a preg- 
nancy of meaning in it, thus, — the .Jews, placed under 
an economy peculiar in many respects, are to be dealt 
with according to that economy, until '' the heart turn 
to the Lord, and the veil be taken away." From the 
explanation of this economy in Le^dticus chapter xxvi., 
and the latter chapters of Deuteronomy, we find that 
temporal judgments — an exhibition of the internal and 
spiritual — are denounced against their sins during all 
their dispensation. But this dispensation is viewed in 
its vast unity and completeness, and the whole judg- 
ments extend over it all. It will therefore be found, 
on a retrospective view of this dispensation when it is 
closed, that there has been a certain progressive develop- 
ment of parts, according to the scheme set down a little 
ago. Each of these parts has been a germ and a repre- 
sentation of the whole, and that which is true of the 
whole as a whole will be true of each part as a part ; 



156 PREMILLEXNIALISM A DELUSION. 

and the proper relation of each part will be found, when 
enlarged, to be the true representation of the whole. 

Apply this to the matter before us. Certain parts of 
prophecy are applied in the New Testament, and gene- 
rally by divines, to events which were far distant from 
those immediately calling forth the prophecy. Has the 
prophecy, therefore, an arbitrary or a double meaning ? 
i*^ay; but as the whole dispensation when finished shall 
be found to contain all the parts, and as it were to have 
its image in each of these parts, so with the prophecy : 
it came forth with a literal reference to the events oc- 
curring at the time, but having like these events, and 
just because applied to them, a pregnancy of meaning. 
In applying this to the doctrine of Israel's restoration, 
it may be asked, Were the propliecies of a literal return 
exhausted by that from Babylon, and is it therefore im- 
proper to gather from them the assurance that this 
people shall be restored from their present long and sad 
captivity? We cannot answer this question satisfac- 
torily by saying that the Jews shall not be restored to 
Palestine, for there are many reasons of a weighty kind 
to lead to the conclusion that there will be such resto- 
ration. Nor would it be satisfactory to answer affirma- 
tively on the ground that the prophecy has a double 
meanmg, for the meaning of Scripture is one ; and if 
we attach a double meaning to some of its parts, why 
not to all ? Still, we do find passages in prophetic 
Scripture applied by the inspired writers themselves to 
events which literally were not the events occurring 
when and about which the prophecy was given. Wiiat 
solution have we for the difficulty ? Evidently the one 
laid down in the previous remarks. It is only in the 
relative character of the various events connected with 



" GLORIOUS THIXaS SPOKEN OF ZIOX." 157 

the remarkable dispensation of Israel, and in the preg- 
nancy of meaning wliieh they are thus seen to bear, that 
we can discover a clear and satisfactory reason for the 
application of prophecy to what appear Kke different 
events. And this explanation of the difficulty is as re- 
mote as possible from the myths of Grermanism, in which 
the historical position of events is denied, and a mere 
ideal development assigned to them. 

In Joel's time there had been a plague of locusts. 
Every thing had been destroyed. A grievous famine 
ensued. The prophet is commissioned by God to point 
out the cause, and the means of deliverance. The cause 
is sin, for which they are called to repentance, and 
urged '• to rend their hearts, and not their garments, 
and turn to the Lord." The sin is a national one, the 
punishment a national one, the repentance a national 
one ; and the grace and mercy are national too, for it 
is sovereignly added, that the Lord will send them na- 
tional prosperity again, and that they should as a nation 
rejoice and bless the Lord, This last thing is contained 
in the twenty-sixth verse of the second chapter ; so that 
this is the position which that text occupies in the nar- 
rative or prophecy that is placed before us. We have 
seen how we are to apply the facts in Israel's history, 
just as we predicate from God's dealings with a man 
his dealings with the humanity of which that indi\idual 
is a component part, or as we gather from the Lord's 
dealings with a nation or the world what they shall be 
with the individual. Indeed, it is on this principle that 
the personal application of Scripture depends. It is on 
this principle we are permitted to apply those things 
which were spoken to the Jews in such a way as to bear 
an influence upon ourselves, who were outcast Gentiles, 



158 PREMILLENNIALISM A DELUSION. 

and upon whom the ends of the world have come. The 
history of Israel is that of God's dealings with the world 
when it is graffed into the church. Israel is a theatre 
on which the grand drama of the world is acted ; and 
each national fact in the history of that people — ^the 
present one, for example — is a picture in which the 
whole of the dispensation is displayed, as it were, in 
miniature. This is the basis of prophetic interpreta- 
tion ; as Bengel says somewhere, " Prophetia a tempo- 
ribus extremis remota summatim et uno conspectu om- 
nia complect it ur.'' 

In the national history of the Jews, the events before 
us occur — a solemn testimony to them of wdiat they 
might expect if they shut their eyes and hardened their 
hearts. They did act in this manner. They went on 
adding sin to sin, till the Lord cast them out of his land, 
and dispersed them among all nations. They are at 
this moment under the heavy hand of God, as described 
in this book. Still, no matter where they are, no mat- 
ter that they are scattered out of their land and into 
all the kingdoms, they are yet viewed as a people, — the 
land is still theirs ; and the word of prophecy concern- 
ing them and their land is as strictly literal as if they 
were now living in Palestine. Into the midst of them 
Joel comes. He points to their sin, to God's anger, to 
the desolate appearance of their land, and calls them to 
repentance. Indeed, we may say that all this is as 
strictly immediate — or virtually so, if you choose — as if 
we now saw Joel, and were listening to him as he de- 
livers his weighty message. We can conceive Israel as 
even now addressed. This prophecy — this sermon — of 
Joel is not a thing delivered once about an event nigh 
two thousand and six hundred years ago, and then, 



'' GLORIOUS THIXOS SPOKEN OF ZIOX.'' 159 

when its purpose was accomplished, stored up in the 
annals of history, like some musty volume in a neglected 
library. This word is a present word, uttered by Him 
who is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever — in 
whose eternal existence and presence Joel still lives, 
stands forth as ambassador, and utters the will of the 
Lord in the ears of these living Jews, calling them to 
repent and return to Jehovah their God. The Word 
of God knows neither past nor future : it is the pre- 
sent pure living voice of the Eternal, who knoweth the 
end from the beginning, and who, in his own immensity, 
gathers up the past and the future into an ever-abiding 
present. To us Joel lived more than two thousand 
years ago : but Joel, the Lord's ambassador, lives now, 
speaks now, exhorts now. And Israel shall yet hear 
his voice ; for theii' heart shall turn to the Lord, and 
the veil be taken away. Joel has cried long in their 
hearing, '' Turn to the Lord with all your heart, and 
vdth fasting, and weeping, and mournmg. Then will the 
Lord be jealous for his land, and pity his people. Yea, 
the Lord will answer and say to his people, Behold, I 
send you corn, and wine, and oil, and ye shall be satis- 
fied therewith ; and I will no more make you a reproach 
among the people. Fear not, land, for the Lord will 
do great things. Be glad, then, ye children of Zion, 
and rejoice in the Lord your God, for he hath given 
you the former and the latter rain. And the floors shall 
be full of wheat ; and ye shall eat in plenty, and be 
satisfied, and praise the name of the Lord your God, that 
hath dealt wondrously with you.'*' Li this wondrous 
procedure of God, manifested in the peculiar economy 
of Israel, the Jews may still be \iewed as inhabiting their 
own land — as still dwellino- in Palestine — as never hav- 



160 PREMILLENXIALISM A DELUSION. 

iiig been thrust out of it. But they are under the 
heavy cloud of the Lord's anger, and the former and 
the latter rain are restrained, and the land is not bear- 
ing for them. " The seed is rotten under the clods, 
the garners are laid desolate, the barns are broken down ; 
for the corn is withered.'' Israel is there, but the land 
is cursed for their sakes ; it is not bearing for them. 
Yet Joel is in the midst of them ; his voice is raised, and 
the power of the life-giving Spirit is in that voice. 
After a long, dark night of sin, disobedience, unbelief, 
famine, and misery, Israel awakes — is astonished — is 
ashamed — repents, and turns to the Lord their God. 
Then is Jehovah jealous for his land ; and it comes to 
pass that he '* heareth the heavens, they hear the earth, 
and the earth heareth the corn, and the wine, and the 
oil, and these hear Jezreel." Israel's land is fruitful for 
them again ; the famine is no more ; they eat and bless 
the Lord ; Palestine gives Israel food again. And in 
the bright, glorious era that then dawns, they eat in 
plenty, and praise the name of the Lord. 

In the fully-developed history of Israel's dispensation, 
these words of Joel reveal the abundance of produce 
and the happiness of the people during the days of the 
millennial peace, as also their state of mind in reviewing 
all the Lord's dealings with them. Israel is in Palestine 
again. And this prophecy exhibits their internal peace 
and gladness, and the happy external condition in which 
they dwell, when, during the latter-day glory, that 
word shall be fulfilled, " Israel shall be the third with 
Eg}^t and with Assyria, even a blessing in the midst 
of the land ; whom the Lord of Hosts shall bless, saying, 
Blessed be Egypt my people, and Assyria the work of 
my hands, and Israel mine inheritance." Then shall 



^' GLORIOUS THINGS SPOKEX OF ZIOX.'' 161 

flow out their true and cheerful gratitude to the Lord 
for aU his mercies. Their heart shall be full as well as 
their mouth — full of love, and joy, and peace, and praise. 
Thev have been painfully taught the exceeding great- 
ness of every mercy of the Lord during their ^^f amine. " 
They have learned that the promise of a land flowing 
with milk and honey had in it something divinely great 
and excellent ; and now they value their mercies, and 
praise the Lord for them. They review all the way by 
which they have been led ; they re^dew all the mercifid 
dealings of the Lord — all, temporal and spiritual, and 
for them all they sing praise. For a feast of tabernacles 
sliall be kept, such as" shall display their devotional 
spirit, the frame of their minds, and the constant exer- 
cise of their lives, after they have awaked up from their 
dream of delusion, and tiu^ned with weeping and mourn- 
ing to seek the Lord. 

We cannot suppose any will ^dew the difficulty of 
restoring this people back to their country as an insur- 
mountable one, even on human calculation, and with- 
out embraciug the divine element at all. Surely there 
is no greater diflfieulty in the matter now than there was 
in the days of C^'rus, or in the days when Caesar's Com- 
mentaries were written, or in the days when the Re- 
public of Liberia was settled. Would it be a difficult 
flatter to restore the Italian exiles, or the Hungarian 
efugees, or the Polish and Siberian captives ? Only 
let the cycle of events open up in a favourable manner, 
nd how soon would they be in their own lands ! In 
hese cases we reason on human probabilities ; in the 
)ne before us we have all these, and the immutable 
ruth of the divine promises besides. So that we are 
t liberty to assume this matter, and to reason upon it 

L 



162 PREMILLENXIALISM A DELUSIOX. 

in the hypothetical manner we have done in the preced- 
ing remarks. They are still a jDeople ; God is still deal- 
ing with them as such ; the volume of prophecy is still 
opening up in its relations to them as such, and it will 
do so till it is exhausted. 

But take now the economy of the Israelitish church 
as typical of that of the Christian, and the Land of 
Canaan as symbolizing that of the world, and we can 
arrive at the true idea of the Millennium, and the mode 
of its accomplishment. And this we are at liberty to 
do, not only from the principles of general interpreta- 
tion, but from the peculiar way in which reference is 
made to the book of Joel in the Xew Testament. The 
Apostle Peter, quoting the last verses of Joel's second 
chapter, applies them to the New Testament church, 
and shows that the beginning of their accomplishment 
took place at Pentecost, which was the commencement of 
that ministration which is to embrace the world in its 
arms. In the preaching of the word as at Jerusalem on 
Pentecost, and by the outpouring of the S23irit who de- 
scended then, Israel is yet to be saved, for all Israel 
shall be saved ; and the apostle applies the Scriptures 
which tell us so to that particular mode of it exhibited 
in the second chapters of the Acts. If this be confined 
to the seed of Abraham according to the flesh, then we 
gradually open into a general restoration of the peoj)le to 
spiritual privileges, and, as a matter of course, to tem- 
poral prosperity in their land, for this is a part of the 
peculiar covenanted position they occupy. But if we 
view the type as a circle, resolving in all its parts into 
a wider one, then we obtain the result in the experience 
of the Christian church. 

View it in both of these ways, and single out in each 



" GLORIOUS THINGS SPOKEN OF ZION/'' 163 

four periods or cycles, the one resolving into the other. 
In Jewish histor}", we have the deliverance from Egypt 
carried into the deliverance from Babylon, the greater 
comprehension of the circle being explained in Haggai, 
ii. 3-9. This, again, is extended into the millennial 
deliverance, for there can be no intermediate period 
fixed upon ; and that again into the eternal glory, for 
if we refer to Zeehariah, third and fourth chapters (not 
to point out any more of the volume of prophecy), 
we see that there must be a stage of development be- 
tween the second and the fourth. Philoso^^hieal prin- 
ciples will guide to the same result. In all this we have 
the t^-pe of the Christian history, four periods of which 
may be singled out in very much the same words : the 
Apostolic period, the Eeformation period, the Millen- 
nial period, and the Heavenly glory. 

In considermg these things, in order to found any 
argument upon them, we require to establish, in the 
first place, the philosophic principle of the development 
of history in cycles — a thing pretty generally granted 
by those who have been led to examine it ; and, se- 
condly, by the application of prophecy to the whole, as 
embracing or providing for that principle. From any 
little thought we have been able to give to the subject, 
we think it will be found a truth without almost any 
exception, that the prophetic language, figures, descrip- 
tions, though applicable to and coloured by the present 
matters, assume their thought or idea from the last 
cycle in the series rather than the others. We shall 
not now analyze these two particulars ; but we state 
them as being essentially the basis on which prophetic 
Scripture should be explained, and as being exceedingly 
sunple and satisfactory in their application. On no 



i6i PREMILLENXLILISM A DELUSION. 

other principle can we conceive of a solution to the 
question why language is used about the destruction 
of Jerusalem, or the establishment of the Christian re- 
ligion in the Roman empire (Rev. vi.), or the Millen- 
nium, which is strictly true of the last day and its 
events, and of no other time. 

Suppose these things granted, observe their opera- 
tion in Jewish and Christian history. The covenant 
with Abraham embraced his natural posterity in a literal 
way, and also the land of Canaan ; and it is a covenant 
of salt — it shall never pass away. (Compare Psalm 
Ixxxix., Romans xi.) Hence we find that just as God 
Avas preparing them for the land, he was preparing the 
land for them. It " spued out its inhabitants,'*' that 
there might be room for his people. The land is repre- 
sented as heaving and travailing in desire to have them 
in it. It was so at the first when the people were 
brought forth from Egypt to go in and possess it. It 
was the same at the time of the Babylonian captivity, 
Rosea ii. ; and it is the same now. AVliile God has 
been bringing the third part through the fire, and dis- 
ciplining it in a way it is slow to learn, and has not yet 
begun to learn, is not the land of the Jews waiting for 
tliem, and has it not emptied itself of every people that 
has endeavoured to occupy it ? It might offend some if 
we were to pass onwards to the final period, and inquire 
into the disposition of things when, in the new heavens 
and the new earth, the full accomplishment of the pro- 
phecy and of the covenant shall possibly take place. 
Wli^refore, without enlarging any more upon the state 
and prospects of the Jews, we merely remark that, if 
the gracious salvation is to embrace them during the 
Millennium, then it will also embrace their land, for 



" GLORIOUS THINGS SPOKEN OF ZION." 165 

they are kept for it and it for them, tlie peculiar na- 
ture of their economy requiring this — an economy, we 
mean, which is Abrahamic and not Mosaic. So that we 
cannot affirm any thing of a spiritual restoration, with- 
out predicating a return to their land, they being home- 
less in a manner without it— it being empty without 
them ; all in terms of the covenant made with Abra- 
ham. Wherefore, on these grounds, which are furnished 
in the pregnant meaning of prophecy, we confidently 
expect the literal as well as spiritual restoration of the 
seed of Jacob in the latter days. 

And how is this their conversion — their millennial 
revival — to be brought about ? Precisely as that of a 
part of them was accomplished on the day of Pentecost ; 
for Joel tells us, tells them, it is to be by calls to re- 
pentance and the outpouring of the Spirit. The apostle 
Peter, quoting this declaration, says to them that the 
promise was to them and to their children — says that 
if they would " repent and be baptized in the name of 
Jesus Christ, they should receive the gift of the Holy 
Ghost." And lest it should be imagined the promise 
was fulfilled and exhausted on that day, there is an in- 
teresting change of the words. Joel says, " I will pour 
out my Spirit upon all flesh.'' Peter, applying it to 
that day, and quoting purposely from the Septuagint, 
says, " I will pour out of my Spirit f as if he had said 
that the dispensation was then commencing which should 
embrace all flesh, and which would only be fulfilled when 
it did so. From all which two special arguments might 
be constructed, namely — that until all the Jewish people 
are partakers of the Holy Ghost, the promise in Joel is 
unfulfilled ; and that the same must be said of otliers 
than Jews, even of " all who are afar off", as many as the 



166 PREMILLENNIALISM A DELUSION. 

Lord our God shall call/' who are as eertainly included 
in the "all flesh'' as the Israelites themselves. Again, 
if words have any meaning, those of Peter declare that 
the preaching of the name of Jesus Christ, and baptism 
in that name, are coincident and coextensive with the 
outpouring of the Spirit, and hence included in the 
prophecy of Joel. To go particularly into these would, 
however, lead us back to subjects which have already 
been discussed under their proper heads, so w^e leave 
them, merely suggesting to our premillenarian friends 
that this indicates how large is the field of argument we 
might have carried them over when showing the error 
of their theory. Joel, explained by Peter, tells us first 
of the restoration of the Jews into the covenant of 
Abraham, which is filled with provisions temporal, spi- 
ritual, eternal ; and, secondly, that this is to be effected 
under the dispensation of the Spirit of grace ; and, 
lastly, that Jesus Christ the Lord is '* away" (John 
xvi.) during that dispensation — a dispensation which is 
to embrace all flesh, for the preaching of his name and 
baptism into it are alone to characterize it. 

The conversion of the Jews will not, hov,^ever, con- 
stitute the whole of the first resurrection, although truly 
included in it. The prophecy extends to a larger circle 
than " to them and to their children ; " it reaches to all 
flesh, — " to all who are afar off', even as many as the 
Lord our Grod shall call." The Jewish type enlarges 
into the Christian antitype, — an antitype which has 
likewise its four periods, the Apostolic, the Eeforma- 
tion, the Millennial, the Eternal, falling into a coinci- 
dence with the Jewish in the last two, according to 
prophetic writ. In the second of these we now Kve, 
and towards the third our eyes are turning with wist- 



"■ GLOEIOUS THINGS SPOKEX OF ZIOX." 167 

fill gaze, as promising the only remedy for our innu- 
merable evils, and the only possible deliverance from a 
state of things which the very framework of society and 
of nations would seem to have indelibly stamped upon 
groaning humanity. We have no desu^e to witness up- 
heavals, for we know the miseries which far a while are 
sure to be found in their train ; but we speak, we be- 
lieve, the thoughts of all earnest and deep-thinking men, 
when we state as our conviction that Satan has so 
welded together the whole framework of society, and 
done so to serve his own purposes, as that deliverance 
cannot come save by a wrench which shall be felt — to 
the core of Europe alone ? — to the deepest core of the 
world. And if such a thing must come, if we must 
look for " distress of nations and men's hearts failing 
them for fear," if we must look for the darkest ^2Lvi of 
the night before the dawning of the world's light, 
then the sooner it comes the better. Grod will carry 
his elect safely through. 

It may alarm those who are in love with primitive 
Christianity, or rather the period of it, to have such a 
place assigned to the Reformation as we have done, and 
to be asked to ^iew it as an enlargement of the Apos- 
tolic circle ; even as not a few might be found who 
would be unwilling to admit that the Reformation under 
Xehemiah was a widening of the previous circle in the 
Jewish church. And possibly there may be wanting 
now the self-denied spirit, the burning love, and the 
martyr constancy of the times in which Tertullian 
wrote his apology. TTe are not sure that to any great 
extent the same integrity, constancy, and heavenly- 
mindedness, could be predicated of Christians now, as 
is opened up in these few words of that apology: — 



168 PREMILLENNIALISM A DELUSION. 

"We worship Him alone, and are ready to lose our 
lives in his service; thus, then, let the claws of wild 
beasts pierce iis, and their feet trample upon us, while 
our hands are stretched out to God ; let crosses suspend 
us, let fires consume us, let swords pierce our breasts, 
— a praying Christian is in a frame for enduring any 

thing We are dead to all ideas of worldly 

honour and dignity We nourish our faith by 

the Word of God." We fear it is not so noic; but was 
it not so at the Eeformation and downwards? Trace 
it in the Church of Scotland, in the Eeformed Church 
of France, in the Pilgrim Fathers. But we need not 
trace it. Every one knows that the spiritual life, fed 
on the Word of the living God, burned bright and pure 
even as at any period of the three first centuries. But 
apart from this, it is right we should know the relative 
position of these two periods — the primitive and the 
Reformation — to serve as a testimony against the lan-^ 
guage of Tractarian and Popish writers, and those who 
are tinged with their spirit. Leaving out the apostles 
and the inspired writings (which they will most hear- 
tily do) as belonging to no one period of the church 
but to all of it, even as Jesus and the Bible (Ephes. ii, 
20-22) do, then ail who know what the primitive 
church was will hardly hesitate a moment in maintain- 
ing that the Reformation and its three succeeding cen- 
turies is a wider and brighter circle by far than any 
time before. For mere extent, we believe, the Protes- 
tant circle has extended more widely than the Aposto- 
lic, if we vi^w it together with its missions ; though it 
is in other respects we view it, even as the reformation 
under Nehemiah must be viewed in other respects too. 
Were we to compare the men — Edwards with Tertul- 



^' GLORIOUS THINGS SPOBJSN OF ZION." 169 

lian, Howe with Chrysostom, Owen with Augustine, 

Calvin with there is no name to be thought of ; 

indeed, why should we adduce many instances ? There 
is not a standard writer in Eeformation times that is 
not, from the shoulders upwards, taller than the most of 
the fathers put together. Which of them is like Tur- 
retine, or Dr Francis Roberts, or Eichard Baxter ? Is 
there any that could be mentioned with Chalmers? In 
a word, for precise theology, sound morality, eminent 
men, the diffusion of the Scriptures, healthy writing, 
and right preaching, they are not to be compared. We 
are not now what a healthy Christianity would desire; 
but truly we would not like to exchange for the days 
of Ambrose or of Salvian. Bad as the nineteenth 
century is, it is greatly in advance of the fourth.* It 
would be an interesting subject to take up the three 
first centuries, and the three bygone ones, and insti- 
tute a comparative analysis of the two ; but it is beside 
our subject here. We should like to see it done by 
some one. A good beginning has been made by Isaac 
Taylor. 

It is unnecessary to follow the application of prophecy 
to this branch of the subject, so as to open it into the 
IVIillennium ; we shall fall back upon it as already exhi- 
bited in the typical church, and turn our eyes at once 
to the glorious future, which breaks in bright beauty 
upon our faith. All things are advancing towards a Mil- 
lennium. " The good time coming'" is felt after by men 
of all minds, and pursuits, and theories. The only em- 
bodiment of the general thought and universal instinc- 
tive craving is the good tune of the future. The ancient 

* Of course it is Protestant not Popish countries we are speak- 
ing of. 



170 PREMILLEXXIALISM A DELUSION. 

poets belied liumanity when tliev commenced liistory 
witli the golden age — unless, indeed, some glimmerings 
of the Eden of God, lighted up by his favour, and the 
excellency of unfallen man, are to be traced in their 
Satui^nian period — for human hopes and instincts feel 
out naturally towards the future, assured the golden 
age is yet to come. And come it will. It maybe with 
garments dipped in blood — it may be amidst the ruins 
of nations — it may be with the throes and writhings of 
a travailing world — ^it may be with sore trials to the 
godly, and heavy judgments upon the unholy — it may 
break forth in its beauty from amidst a darkness deep as 
that which was dispelled when the " Dayspring from on 
high'' visited our world, or as the gloom which was rent 
asunder by the great Reformation — it may be with all 
these and more, but come it will, for God hath spoken 
the word, and the Lord Jesus Christ has been in the 
world. It is written, '^ God sent not his Son into the 
world to condemn the world, but that the world through 
him might be saved.'' He has been in the world, not 
as its Judge (ou pja 'AQiyr^ tov yiogiJ^ov, John iii. 17) — he 
will yet be that — but as the Saviour. He is in the world 
to save it; and by the ministry of reconciliation all 
things are advancing towards this glorious issue. Ee- 
membering the rules for the application of prophecy, we 
may even say that the very creation is groaning to be 
delivered. Every sigh of the expiring animal — every 
noise of the crumbling leaf — every moan of the rushing 
wind — every roar of the rolling thunder — is a cry of 
hope and a cry of desire for the manifestation of the 
world's redemption, and for the exclusion of intruders 
and of the usurping prince. " The whole creation 
groaneth and travaileth together in pain luitil now ; for 



171 

the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the 
manifestation of the sons of God.'' 

Hence this principle of prophetic appKcation opens to 
us the true meaning of such passages as these : " He 
is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but 
for the sins of the whole world." " The Father sent 
the Son to be the Saviour of the world." " He gave him- 
self a ransom for all, to be manifested in due time," as 
the tide of gospel efficacy and glory rolls on, in the 
ministration of God's sovereign Spirit, covering the 
world with life, and love, and peace. We see not yet 
the manifestation of the world's redemption, but we 
know it is a redeemed world ; we know the Lord, for 
the sake of his precious pearl, his treasure, his church 
hid in it, came and sold all that he had, and bought it ; 
and we know not how soon the infinite Spirit may show 
this to be the case. We know not when, but we know 
the fact ; for God hath said, and Christ hath bought, and 
the Spirit is now in it, and ministers are called to be- 
seech and to pray, and men to listen and repent, " that 
the times of refreshing may come from the presence o/ 
the Lord." The Shepherd is even now in the wilder- 
ness — he is looking for the strayed sheep ; yea, he has 
found it — he has fought with the lion, and bound him 
— he has satisfied the Father's law for its sin of apostasy 
— he is even now laying it across his shoulders, to bear it 
back to the Father as his own recovered sheep, liis own 
saved world, the field of his purchase. By creation 
this world belonged to the creating God, but it aposta- 
tized ; by redemption it belongs to Christ, and he is re- 
calling it from its apostasy — he is standing in its streets 
and broad places, proclaiming forgiveness — he is stand- 
ing forth in the midst of its kingdoms, and oftering re- 



172 PREMILLENXIALISM A DELUSION. 

conciliation. The usurper and his host are giving all 
the opposition in theii' power, and while wilfully rush- 
ing to the pit themselves, they seek to bear this re- 
deemed world along with them. But they shall not 
prevail. That voice which echoed through the tomb of 
Lazarus, and the loud tones of which shall yet summon 
all before the Judge, is now. in the still small voice of 
the gospel, wooing and constraining poor convinced 
sinners to come under the broad shadow of his ever- 
lasting name, and will do so till this strayed world shall 
nestle, like a stricken dove, in the bosom of its Lord. 

This message of redemption was promulgated by the 
godly race of ministers who lived and preached before 
the flood. It was declared to the ungodly that they 
had no right in Grod's world, unless they would throw 
down the arms of rebellion, and lie at the feet of then' 
merciful King. But they did not. Down through the 
world's history men have not done it. They have dared 
to live in the Lord's world without submitting to his 
rightful authority— they have dared to use the blessings 
which Grod put into his world, and to waste them accord- 
ing to the lusts of their own hearts, as if there were no 
judgment and no wrath. But thus will it not be always. 
• - Griorious things are spoken of Zion.'' The wicked shall 
be driven out of Christ's redeemed world to their own 
place, or by conversion shall be incorporated into that 
Zion, of which these glorious things are spoken. Zion shall 
yet be the name of the world ; the world is yet to be the 
name of Zion. And thus doth the eternal Grod ^dew it. 
As at first, when he was pleased to enter into covenant 
with the representatives of our race, he yiewed as pre- 
sent before him all those for whom Adam stood, as if 
they were then existing, present, looking on, consent- 



" GLORIOUS THINGS SPOKEN OF ZION." 173 

ing; so in the new covenant representation doth he view 
all who have existed, or may exist, as congregated to- 
gether in this his world. Christ crucified is lifted up, and 
offered to them; the rejecters are driven out of his 
world ; the believers dwell there. And thus we, grasp- 
ing in thought the world's duration, the world's his- 
tory, and the mighty events which have come to pass 
in it, have it. all before us, in one vast view, as the lost, 
the convinced, the saved world. 

May we be permitted as Christ's minister to add a 
word of exhortation ? Reader, the Lord Jesus Christ 
is now in this world to save it. He, the coming Judge, 
is i^resent as the Saviour to direct men to the refuge 
which is provided from the overflowing scourge. All 
things are hastening forward to the bright era at which 
we have been glancing. This world is a redeemed 
world, though not yet manifested as such. But the 
Spirit of the Father and of Christ is in the midst of it, 
the crucified One is lifted up, the echoes of the hea- 
venly music — yea, and of the redeemed world's music, 
yet to be sung — sweep across the dreary wilds of the 
apostasy, alluring in power and sweetness the laden 
soul, the toiling, weary race. That glorious gospel rolls 
along in majesty and beauty, in love and life. The 
healing waters of the sanctuary are '^ going forth into 
the sea," and the multitudes have been rushmg into 
life. These waters, this gospel, has reached you. In 
it con^dction of sin, danger, wrath, is poured into your 
spirit. Thus is it with you as with the world ; with the 
world as with you, — convinced that you might be 
saved ; taught your guilt that you may bring it to 
Christ to have it removed. All this has come forth 
from the throne of the Eternal to vou; the Lord of 



174 PREMILLENNIALISM A DELUSION. 

glory and the Spirit of grace even now urge you to be 
reconciled unto God. Are you to stand in the ^Yay of 
this gospel's success ? Many cogent reasons thou mayst 
give, many a plausible argument thou mayst use, why 
thou shouldst not embrace salvation. Thou mayst not 
feel thyself guilty ; thou mayst believe thy guilt to be 
but small ; or thou mayst see thyself so very guilty as 
to think of nothing but despair. But is not God's own 
dear Son in the world, and has he not been crucified? 
— and does not that declare, as a sunbeam, the deep guilt 
and wretchedness of that world — of thee; for has not the 
crucified One been rejected by thee — a sufiicient token 
of thy guilt, astonishing as it is dangerous ? But he is 
not in the world as yet to judge it; it was to save it 
he came. Is he not sweetly knocking at the door of 
thy heart, and placing the cup of salvation to thy lips ? 
Why not drink it then ? why put away heaven's peace 
from thee ? why feed on ashes when thou mayst enjoy 
the hidden manna and the water of life — when thou 
mayst rest on the Elder Brother's bosom, and look up 
into those eyes which look down into thine the glances 
of a love stronger than death, sweeter than a father's, 
and abiding as eternity? 

" God sent not his Son into the world to condemn 
the world ; but that the world through him might be 
saved." And Jesus came ; and Gethsemane, and Cal- 
vary, and Olivet are witnesses of the accomplished work. 
And according to Old Testament prophecy, on Pente- 
cost commenced the dispensation of that ministry which 
is to embrace the world. It has not yet embraced all 
the earth, nor all the men — alas, no ! But it is to do 
so; and " the morning's kindling blushes hail the rising 
day of grace." The morning has dawned, and the glory 



" aLORIOUS THINGS SPOKEN OF ZIOX." 175 

is arising. Sad as is the state of tilings at present by 
reason of the usurper and his followers ; gloomy as is 
the view when the eve stretches over the hills of dark- 
ness ; yet the word is gone forth, — the Saviour hath 
died, — the Spirit is working. During the time of tra- 
vail, many have been convinced and saved. But the 
world's conviction will erewhile take place, and its 
conversion will speedily approach ; and a humble world 
it will be in millennial times, after conviction of such 
guilt, after experience of such love. And thus the 
rolling river of the gospel, " wherein shall go no galley 
with oars, neither shall gallant ship pass thereby," — 
where are no wars, no tumults, no strifes, — where "the 
weapons of warfare are not carnal, but mighty through 
Grod to the pulling down of strongholds," — is steadily 
advancing and flowing, till, in its universal diffusion 
and universal acceptation, Christ shall make manifest 
that this poor strayed world is his saved world. 

" Fly abroad, thou mighty Gospel, 
Win and conquer, never cease; 
May thy lasting wide dominions 
Multiply and still increase. 
Sway the sceptre, 
Saviour, all the world around." 



XOTE. 



It may be thought the parable of the rich man and 
Lazarus contradicts those things which have been said, 
in the argument of Part Fourth, on the disembodied 
state, as it represents conversations to be carried on, 
and individual recognitions to take place, in the unseen 
world of souls. The following particidars will show 
this to be a mistake : — 1. It is sometimes the case that 
Scripture parables admit of proper names, as in Ezekiel 



176 PREMILLEXNL^ISM A DELUSION. 

xxiii. 4, and sometimes so distinctly personal are these 
as to require other circumstances to be taken into 
account to prove that they are not real but figurative 
only, as in Hosea i. We are free, however, to admit 
that Lazarus seems to have been an individual well 
known in Jerusalem, and by those Pharisees who were 
standmg before Jesus. But the rich man was a para- 
bolical character, in which the Lord exhibited the un- 
godly men who were standing around him very much 
in the same way as Matthew xxi. 28-32, only with a 
prominence given to the matter spoken of, Luke xvi. 
14, Id. Bengel supposes there were five of these covet- 
ous men standing about our Lord and deriding him, 
and that he, as was his custom, endeavours to reach 
their consciences by this parable. 2. The Lord has 
two special objects in view, besides the one referred to, 
namely, to shut them up to the Word of Life, and to 
show them the im230ssibility of any one revisiting this 
world again to make known the secrets of the other 
world, either for the gratification of an idle curiosity, 
or for the confutation of theu^ opponents, the Sadducees. 
If we are to take the nonsense of the Talmud as any 
indication of their ideas and statements at that time 
(see Allen's "Modern Judaism,'*' chapters x. and xi.), 
then we can easily see the great design of our Lord in 
this parable. Indeed, a reference to these things would 
be quite sufiicient to show us the absolute necessity of 
taking up the ground which vre have done, and of ex- 
plaining this parable precisely as Calvin has done. Any 
one who studies the Popish and Jewish ideas on " the 
intermediate state,'' will not be slow in seeking for 
something definite (so far as pneumatology can be sup- 
posed to supply any thing definite), as to the possibility 
or otherwise of getting access to souls, or of one soul I 
having conversations with another. And we are con- 1 
vinced that it is all mere delusion, and, on the part of I 
the Jewish rabbins and Popish priests, something worse! 
than delusion, to maintain that there is. Nor does this I 



NOTE. 177 

parable give the least countenance to the idea ; for, 3. 
If the conversation recorded in it be a literal one, then 
souls have tongues, and hands, and voices, and eyes, 
and could drink water and feel its refreshing and cool- 
ing influence. ^Mierefore, as '-Abraham's bosom'' was 
the Jewish term for the state of glory, and did not re- 
fer to Abraham himself, and as so many things in these 
verses are after the manner of a parable, we conclude 
with Calvin that the conversation is so too, and are 
only words put into imaginary mouths in a parabolical 
way, that the Lord may read a lesson of fearful import- 
ance to five godless men who were on the way to tor- 
ment, while they flattered themselves in their own 
blinded eyes that they were going to Abraham's bosom. 
It is a pretty thing and fine food for sentimentalism to 
talk of souls recognising each other, and being specta- 
tors of what goes on in this world, and being witnesses 
of Christian activity, in the disembodied state ; and it 
is and has been a most profitable speculation for de- 
signing and knavish priests to keep up the conceit, with 
all the accompaniments which that prolific system of 
iniquity which is so intimately acquainted with purga- 
tory and purgatorial matters knows so well to invent. 
But it is right to know there is no such thing, and that 
there is not a syllable in the Bible to support it. There 

is no interval of time between death and judgment, 

therefore aU men should be well prepared to meet their 
God. 



THE EXD. 



EDINBURGH ; PRINTED BY JOHNjTOXE & HCNTER, HIGH STREET. 



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